A project to rebuild a terrestrial-based network that will allow high-speed internet services in Iraq is underway.

The project, called Iraqi National Backbone, is being deployed by a joint venture comprising Symphony, a division of the Australia’s Telstra, and Earthlink Telecom, a Baghdad-based internet service provider.

The new terrestrial route will originate from the Kurdistan region of Iraq to Europe via Turkey and will include new long-haul routes to most of the major cities throughout Iraq. It is envisaged to become one of the longest in-production multi-layer restoration network environments in the world and is expected to enter commercial service by March 2017.

Low internet bandwidth availability has been a key barrier for businesses and individuals in Iraq.

The country is currently served by submarine networks primarily by the Southeast Asia-Middle East-Western Europe (SEA-ME-WE) network passing through Egypt’s Suez Canal and another network passing a longer route around the Horn of Africa.

“This project will have positive economic impact on local businesses and internet applications, and will provide more than enough bandwidth to connect every town in Iraq,” Sarmad Ahmed, CEO, EarthLink Telecommunications Iraq, said in a statement. “Regionally, the project will reduce the latency for traffic between Asia and Europe and increase route diversity for the GCC region.”

The network utilises a combination of networking technologies from the US’ Cisco including the NCS (network call signalling) 5500 and ASR 9000 router platforms and the NCS 2000 for dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM). The entire solution is based on industry standard protocols, including WSON in the optical layer, according to Cisco.