Russia to start deployment of backbone to Kurils

The Russian federal Ministry of Communications and Mass Media has announced that it plans to start deployment of the sub-sea fibre-optic backbone line to the Kuril Islands at the beginning of this year. The line will inter-connect the city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk on Sakhalin Island with the settlements of Kurilsk and Krabozavodskoye in the Kurils. The length of the sub-sea section of the line, to be built across the Okhotsk Sea, will be 750 kilometres, and its capacity will be 40 Gbps.

The size of the investment is around RUB 3.3 billion, and the project will be funded through the federal programme to develop the Kuril Islands. The backbone is due to come on stream in the second quarter of 2019. Around 20,000 residents of the Kuril Islands will be able to use broadband services then.

In March 2017, deployment of the 1,800 kilometre backbone line connecting the Sakhalin, Magadan and Kamchatka regions was completed across the Okhotsk Sea.