Azerbaijan operator Baku Telephone Communications (Baktelecom) revealed it has deployed a fibre-optic GPON network in the Garadagh settlement in Baku.
Baktelecom says the GPON network covers all of Garadagh, passing 60,000 households to provide high-speed broadband services. Garadagh is a raion on the coast of the Caspian Sea with a population of just over 128,700 people.
The state-owned operator says that 24,400 subscribers are now using the service, which promises data speeds from 30 Mbps to 250 Mbps.
Subscribers can choose service packages that bundle either voice services or IPTV, or both.
The Garadagh GPON network was rolled out undert the auspices of the Ministry of Digital Development and Transport’s "Online Azerbaijan” project, which aims to update Azerbaijan’s telecoms infrastructure and adapt it to modern international standards.
According to ministry figures, as of November 2023, 58% of households in Azerbaijan had access to broadband internet – around 1.7 million households. Of those, 888,000 households gained broadband access during the first 11 months of 2023. The government expected to increase that to 60% by the end of 2023.
According to TeleGeography, the MDDT is implementing "Online Azerbaijan” under a private-public partnership model, and plans to extend GPON to most of the country by the end of this year.