MINSK, 14 February (BelTA) – Belarus is expected to connect a big transcontinental communication line Moscow-Minsk-Frankfurt, BelTA learnt from Vladimir Ryabovolov, first deputy head of the Operations and Analysis Center under the President of Belarus.
The project is implemented by Belarusian Cloud Technologies (or beCloud) with the use of foreign direct investment. The founders of the company are the National Traffic Exchange Center (51% of the authorized fund) and Russian businessman Konstantin Nikolayev. An investment agreement has already been signed with the company.
The Belarusian and Russian parties will have a parity ownership of the communication line. Belarusian Cloud Technologies will get an opportunity for the external Internet traffic transfer via Belarus. “It is a breakthrough project: if we take a look on the map, the main Internet traffic from China to Russia gets to Europe by sea via Scandinavia. It is inefficient. The simplest way to do it is to make this transit line go via Belarus,” the official said.
The project will provide an opportunity to tap into Belarus’ transit potential, allow to make more money on information services and promote the development of the relevant infrastructure in the country.
End user customers will benefit from the project as well. “It is all interlinked. For instance, the development of the National Traffic Exchange Center in tandem with other measures has allowed the country to reduce Internet traffic prices 2.5 times for private providers over a short period of time,” Vladimir Ryabovolov said.
Belarus seeks to get into the top 30 countries with the most developed telecom industry by 2015. Belarus has already made considerable progress here: the International Telecommunication Union and UNESCO put Belarus on the 21st position in terms of proportion of households with Internet access. The country is ranked 6th in terms of ICT development.
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