By Siranush Adamyan
A large share of internet traffic from Europe to several Middle Eastern countries now passes through Armenia, according to the head of Team Telecom Armenia, one of the country's largest telecom operators.
Aram Barseghyan, who became the company's chief executive in August, told CivilNet that actual traffic on Team's network exceeds 10 terabits. By comparison, he said, all of Armenia's domestic internet consumption is below one terabit.
Barseghyan said the traffic serves three or four Middle Eastern countries, including Qatar, Iraq, Iran and the United Arab Emirates.
"When it comes to supplying the countries I mentioned, we are a transit country, providing between 15 and 55 percent of their total volume," Barseghyan said. He said the company is interconnected with major regional and European operators across almost all of Armenia's borders. He did not specify which routes carry the traffic.
Barseghyan said the transit links run through the company's Next Generation Network (NGN). Team began building the network in 2020 using 25G-PON technology, which offers symmetric speeds of 25 gigabits per second. That is 25 times faster than the company's previous one-gigabit fiber network.
At the time, the investment raised questions within the company's technical team and among its partners. "The more advanced the technology you deploy, the more expensive it is," Barseghyan said. "Today's experience has shown us that it was worth it."
According to Barseghyan, the network's quality has also increased the trust of international partners.
Team is also the main internet provider for Firebird's artificial intelligence factory in Hrazdan. The $500 mn first phase of the factory opened in August. Firebird co-founder Alexander Yesayan is also a co-founder of Team Group.
The facility depends heavily on international connectivity. Yesayan has said 95 to 97 percent of its customers are outside Armenia.
Barseghyan said Firebird chose Team partly because of the number of border crossings and international links the company operates. Team supplies the factory through four fully independent routes, with no point where the cables intersect. Under its contract, the company guarantees 99.999 percent availability, a level Barseghyan described as a world record.
Data staying home
Barseghyan said the same infrastructure is changing how Armenian clients store data. Many were once skeptical about hosting servers in Armenia and kept them in Europe instead. But they did not account for the risk of losing access to their own information if the connection to Europe went down.
"Today, our society, the state and business have come to understand that it is better to keep these storage facilities in Armenia," he said.
Barseghyan has more than 20 years of experience in telecommunications. He served as Team's deputy chief executive from the company's founding. He replaced Hayk Yesayan, who moved to lead the wider Team Group.
According to Barseghyan, the company has 1 mn mobile subscribers. It aims to bring 5G coverage to more than 90 percent of Armenia's population and plans to complete most of the work in 2027.
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