Azernews.Az

By Nigar Orujova

Amsterdam Trade Bank has allocated 13.7 million euros for a broadband Internet development project in Azerbaijan.

The Azerbaijani Communications and High Technologies Ministry reported on April 21 that contracts for the purchase of telecommunications equipment have already been signed and part of it has already been delivered to the country.

The project envisages increasing the number capacities of the telecommunication nodes in Sumgait, Ganja, Absheron, Zagatala, Shamkir, Khachmaz, Goy-Gol, Agdam, Barda and Terter regions.

Moreover, the number of ports of broadband internet will be increased by 98,000 units in 47 cities and regions of the country.

Azerbaijan is one of the most developed countries in the region in terms of its usage of high technologies.

Currently, some 75 percent of the population uses the Internet. The broadband Internet penetration among the population stands at 62 percent. For these indicators, Azerbaijan is twice ahead of the world average.

Moreover, Azerbaijan holds the 23th place among developing countries on the share of Internet-connected households.

The project on the development of broadband Internet in Azerbaijan was planned to start this year and to be implemented in the next three years.

The ultimate goals of the project are to provide the whole country, including remote rural areas, with high-speed internet in the range of 10-100 megabits/second and to increase the share of broadband internet users to 85 percent. This will allow Azerbaijan to reach the level of other developed countries by 2017.

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Nigar Orujova is AzerNews’s staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @o_nigar

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