Russia Is Building a Digital Bridge Between East and West
The plenary discussion “Telecom Infrastructure: Demands and Solutions. Global Experience” took place on October 9 as part of the business program of the 2nd Global Digital Forum. A key highlight was the presentation of TeaNext, the world’s longest terrestrial fiber-optic backbone, connecting Russia’s eastern borders with China and Mongolia and its western borders with Belarus and the European Union.
Representatives of Russia’s largest telecom operators, regulators and international guests from Ecuador, Tanzania and Arab countries took part in the discussion. Denis Shershenev, Director of the Department for Working with International Telecom Operators and Content Providers at Rostelecom, said that 11,000 kilometers of cable containing 96 fiber strands are buried underground and routed around major urban areas to minimize the risk of human interference. The project launched in 2020 and is on track to meet its schedule.
“TeaNext will essentially be the longest terrestrial cable in the world to date,” he emphasized.
Round-trip latency from the Chinese-Mongolian border to Frankfurt is expected to be around 100 milliseconds, matching the best figures worldwide. According to Shershenev, the backbone will offer an alternative to submarine cables and help challenge the popular route from Hong Kong through Kazakhstan to Europe.
Participants unanimously identified artificial intelligence as the main driver of traffic growth. Olga Makarova, Director of the Commercial Resource Management Department at Mobile TeleSystems (MTS), cited a Cisco forecast that traffic will increase sevenfold by 2030–2035. She said the network currently uses equipment with 400 Gbps ports, while 800 Gbps technology is being tested and 1.6 Tbps is under consideration. She also noted that Rostelecom’s backbone has enough capacity to carry 1.5 petabits of traffic.
Konstantin Novikov, Head of the Sales Division for National Telecom Operators and Content Providers at MegaFon, highlighted the close link between networks and data centers: bringing a new data center with 50 racks online requires around 2 terabits of capacity.
International guests shared their own challenges and hopes. Viktor Aguila Ramírez, Vice Minister of Telecommunications and the Information Society of Ecuador (MINTEL), explained that laying fiber-optic cable across the Amazon and the Andes is not feasible, so Latin America is turning to satellite technology.
“If there were a cable like this running through Asia to Chile, it would be a tremendous benefit for us,” he said.
Dr. Nkundwe Moses Mwasaga, Director-General of the Tanzania Information and Communication Technologies Commission, noted that this new infrastructure would be particularly valuable for landlocked countries and invited Russian investors to get involved. “Investment from Russia in my country’s IT market would be a real boon,” he said.
The discussion also addressed risks. Olga Makarova pointed out that big tech companies now build 80% of submarine communications cables, while telecom operators have ceased to be the “builders of the internet.” She identified the lack of harmonized legislation as the main problem: a cable running from Hong Kong to Europe crosses territories governed by different legal frameworks. Konstantin Novikov added that the resilience of Russia’s infrastructure had been demonstrated by a recent power-supply incident at the Moscow International Telephone Exchange 9 (MMTS-9), when high-quality communications were restored in just an hour and a half.
“If the infrastructure and the industry remain resilient even in the face of external disruption, it means things were done right,” he said.
Looking ahead, Denis Shershenev estimated that TeaNext has enough spare capacity to meet demand for the next 10 years, but allowed that a second project could be needed in as little as two years if demand surges exponentially. Konstantin Novikov offered a more cautious forecast: “Every period of explosive growth is followed by a plateau of sorts. I think we could reach one within four to five years,” he said.
Participants agreed that what matters most is not the fiber itself, but the ability to remain flexible and resilient amid technological change.
