Azerbaijani IT market has been experiencing dynamic growth since early 2012. According to the Azerbaijani State Statistics Committee, the volume of information and communication services rendered to the organizations and people in Azerbaijan in January-May totaled 538.2 million manat. The rate of growth of this sector over the past period in comparable prices amounted to 16.5 percent. About 72.4 percent (399.3 million manat) of the total volume fell to the share of services rendered to the population.
About 59 percent of the income received from the communication services fell to the share of mobile telephony. The volume of income received by the mobile sector increased by 12.7 percent and hit 317.3 million manat compared to 2011. Today, three GSM-operators: Bakcell, Azercell, Azerfon operate in Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan expands the coverage of broadband internet services. The optic line with a length of 600 kilometers has been laid within the project of expanding broadband Internet services in rural areas.
The production association attracted seven private Internet service providers to the project. Five of them have already begun to implement the project. Private providers worked to lay fiber-optic cable in the direction of 11 telecommunication units with a length of 200 kilometers.
According to the forecasts, all the Azerbaijani villages will be covered by fiber-optic lines by late 2012. The operator plans to bring broadband services and services based on them directly into the end users' houses.
The services of AztelekomNet broadband internet are rendered in 52 cities of the country. Currently, all district centers have been connected to the Trans-Asia-Europe cable line.
The number of broadband connections in Aztelekom network has been increased by 42 percent and reached 74,000 since early 2012. The operator expects to increase monthly revenue from Internet services to 3 million manat. This can be achieved if the subscriber base for broadband services will be increased to 200,000 units (at an average cost of services - 15 manat).
All this occurs amid the decrease in the operator's yield. This is stipulated by the decrease in traffic consumption in the operator's network, which is now increasingly migrating to mobile networks.
The telephone network in Baku is being transferred to optic cables. Cable infrastructure of the "Baku Telephone Communications" production association of the Azerbaijani Communications and IT Ministry is being transferred to the fiber-optic lines. The work in this direction has been aimed primarily at improving the quality of the Internet services rendered to the users. The transition to the optical lines and installation of equipment supporting the NGN network reduces the distance between the automatic telephone exchange and the end user. This greatly contributes to improving the quality of the Internet services rendered by the operator. The work on transiting to the optical lines is being carried out in stages in Baku and beyond.
Residential buildings in Baku are fully covered by the optical lines. Azerbaijani primary provider - Delta Telecom Company has completed constructing the cable infrastructure to provide residential buildings in the capital with the access to the Internet via fiber-optic lines. At present, the work is underway to determine the supplier of equipment to be installed in buildings and integrated with Delta Telecom's network to connect to the Internet. The fully prepared infrastructure will be offered to Internet service providers, who must lay a cable inside the buildings. Today, big providers have been already rendering Internet service via the optical lines in many residential buildings of the capital.
The speed of traffic coming to Azerbaijan via the infrastructure of the Azerbaijani primary provider - Delta Telecom, has increased by 80 Gbit / s and reached 300 Gbit / s. About 50 gigabits of the total volume of traffic imported into the country are used. The rest part has not been loaded and is held in reserve to increase the stability of AzNET segment. These resources will be sufficient if the total volume of traffic consumed in Azerbaijan increases by several times.
More than 20 telecommunications operators (public and private Internet providers, mobile operators, etc.) share Delta Telecom's traffic among themselves.
The number of broadband connections via the Azerbaijani state Internet service provider BakinterNet exceeded 20 percent in January-May 2012. The number of ports of the broadband Internet in "Baku Telephone Communication" network exceeds 210,000 units, taking into account the ports of private service providers. Over 160,000 units of the total number of ports are active.
More than 78,000 people are subscribers of BakinterNet state provider.
The congestion of Baku Telephone Communications' telephone network by broadband Internet services reaches 25 percent. The volume of income received for Internet services online, is estimated at 2 million manat.
