The ministry's release is the only official text reviewed here that names SES. It says the project with the international satellite provider covers an Airbus A321LR, and that the airline's own technicians do the installation. Promotion terms, dates and fleet plans are in our report on the flight; this piece looks at the structure behind it.

Aircraft and trains: SES in the air, Starlink on the rails

The release says the ministry worked with international satellite operators, authorised bodies and market participants, through negotiations, agreed operating terms and regulatory decisions. It prepared changes to legislation and to the requirements for non-geostationary satellite systems, with special conditions for air and water transport that removed regulatory barriers to connection. It also agreed with the operators that Kazakh law, security requirements included, would be followed. It does not say which operators, or whether SES is one of them.

On trains, the digital ministry's release says only that satellite communication already works on rail transport. The transport ministry is more specific. Its release of 9 September 2026 says the first pilots with the low-orbit OneWeb and Starlink systems ran in 2025 on five routes, including Astana to Almaty, and that as of 8 September Starlink internet was available in 59 trains on 31 routes, covering more than 770 carriages. It planned to equip 124 trains, or 1,235 carriages on 50 routes, by the end of September.

The government's summary of the digital minister's report to a 6 October session gives a later scale: internet in 1,500 carriages across 124 trains on 50 routes, with work continuing to connect seven aircraft and 50 tourist locations. That summary names no operator, so it does not say whether every one of those carriages uses Starlink.

Villages, schools and phones: Starlink and OneWeb

Starlink has the clearest official paper. A news item of 13 June 2025 on the site of the Otandastar Foundation, reporting the digital ministry's agreement and quoting the minister, describes an agreement with Starlink, a SpaceX subsidiary, under which the company follows Kazakh law, terminals are bought, operated and registered under it, and public sales were expected from the third quarter of 2025. It names rural schools, health facilities, mobile units and infrastructure sites as users, and says that until then Starlink had served only schools in a pilot. The 6 October summary adds a second role: text messaging and a basic level of internet nationwide through Direct-to-Cell, with Beeline and Starlink Mobile, covered in our report on the launch.

Beyond the 2025 rail pilots, OneWeb appears in official texts mainly as a name. A government statement of 4 July 2025 lists OneWeb, Starlink, Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology and Amazon Kuiper as companies Kazakhstan is collaborating with and says 328 more remote settlements would be connected by the end of 2025, with investment above 38.6 billion tenge. It does not assign settlements to a system. The village and school counts for each system come from the minister's October reply to deputies as the press reported it, set out in our report on the commercial licences, not from an official text.

Orbits, licences and who contracts with whom

The release refers to requirements for non-geostationary systems but does not give the orbit of the SES service. SES's own 2021 release, on a memorandum with the Republican Center for Space Communications, a subsidiary of the ministry, describes its O3b mPOWER system as sitting in medium Earth orbit about 8,000 km up, and says the parties would explore service agreements and an in-country gateway. It is an agreement to explore, it predates the airline project, it does not mention aircraft, and nothing in the 2025 or 2026 texts ties that network to Air Astana. The transport ministry describes OneWeb and Starlink as low-orbit systems; the other official texts give no orbit.

The contract chain differs by system. Starlink's agreement is with the ministry itself. SES's 2021 memorandum was with a ministry subsidiary, while the 2026 project is described only as cooperation, so the release does not say whether the airline, the ministry or both hold the contract. For licensing, the minister said Starlink and OneWeb obtained commercial licences on 2 October, again as the press reported, and our explainer on Starlink's legal terms notes that the conditions are unpublished. Whether SES holds, or needs, a separate licence for aircraft is not stated.

Still open in the published record: the SES network and orbit for aircraft, the operator behind the October train count, the licence terms for all three, and whether the aviation rules sit inside the same regime as the consumer licences.

Read on Corridor Signal

The ministry described the flight in a release the same day. It calls SES an international satellite communications provider and says the airline's own technicians install the equipment at its technical base. All passengers get free access during a promotional period to 31 January 2027. From 1 February 2027 free Wi-Fi is limited to business class and to Gold and Diamond members of the Nomad Club programme; members at every level can use messaging apps free, and other passengers can buy paid packages. Fitting of the A321LR fleet continues in stages through 2027.

The release says the ministry prepared changes to legislation and to the requirements for non-geostationary satellite systems, with special conditions for air and water transport, and agreed compliance with Kazakh law, security requirements included, with the operators. It does not give the connection speed, the price of the packages, the number of aircraft to be fitted or which SES satellite network carries the service.

The flight delivers one of two transport promises made in January, when the government said internet access would appear on Kazakhstan Temir Zholy trains and Air Astana aircraft, in its summary of a government session. For the railway, the minister told deputies in May that 27 passenger routes would get internet through OneWeb and Starlink by the end of 2026, Kapital.kz reported.

The service adds SES to the satellite operators active in Kazakhstan, after Starlink and OneWeb moved to commercial licences in Kazakhstan on 2 October. Our explainer on the legal terms for low-orbit operators covers Starlink's 2025 compliance agreement and its plan to serve neighbours through Kazakh gateways, and notes that the security conditions themselves are unpublished. The release does not name the orbit of the SES service, and does not say whether the aviation service runs under the same rules or a separate permission.

Read on Corridor Signal

From pilot to legal service

Method: each row comes from a primary document linked in the Source column: two releases of the Government of Kazakhstan (June 2024 in Russian, translated by Corridor Signal, and July 2025 in English), the digital ministry's June 2025 statement on the Starlink agreement as published on the state Otandastar Foundation's site, and VEON's release of 29 September 2026 on its Kazakh subsidiary.

Until mid-2025 Starlink worked only for schools. By June 2024 the ministry had connected 1,485 of 1,883 schools in a pilot using SpaceX's technology, according to the government. The minister, Zhaslan Madiyev, described the change in June 2025: "Until now, Starlink operated in Kazakhstan in pilot mode, providing internet access only to schools. The general public had no official access," according to the ministry statement. Under the agreement, he said, the company "has committed to fully comply with our legislation on information security and communications."

What the documents leave unstated

The published texts describe the outcome rather than the licence. The June 2025 statement says citizens may lawfully buy, operate and register terminals, and that technical and organisational conditions, including service parameters for private users, were still under review. It frames the service around rural schools, health facilities, mobile units and infrastructure sites where fibre is economically or technically hard to build, and says every stage will follow national law, including cybersecurity and safety requirements. It does not say which entity holds the authorisation, where traffic must land, or what the compliance obligations require in practice. The July 2025 statement lists the four constellations as partners without saying whether OneWeb, Shanghai Spacecom or Kuiper hold, or have applied for, permission to sell services.

Retail pricing is visible, though not from the regulator. Starlink lists its Kazakh plans on its own website, with a basic home plan from 23,000 tenge a month with speed limits and unlimited plans from 31,000 tenge, the Times of Central Asia reported in February. Satellite sits alongside a rural connection programme: the government plans to connect 1,600 villages in 2026, and 370 had been connected by early October, according to its 6 October summary. VEON says Beeline Kazakhstan worked with the Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development and Starlink to bring the service to market, according to its release, but the release does not say which spectrum the service uses or on what terms.

The neighbours

The gateway plan would give Kazakhstan a role beyond its borders. Mr Madiyev said satellite internet delivered through Kazakh ground stations was expected to become available to Tajikistan as early as 2026 and could later extend to Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan, the Times of Central Asia reported, citing Tengrinews. Starlink said on 5 February that its service was available in Tajikistan, the same newspaper reported. Kyrgyzstan appeared on Starlink's service map as available from 23 May, Asia-Plus reported, citing the Fergana news agency. In April, the newspaper said, the Kyrgyz Cabinet had stated that permitting was complete and that SpaceX had met the required conditions and signed agreements with authorised state agencies. Uzbekistan's launch was planned for 2026 but had not happened as of February, according to the Times of Central Asia.

None of these reports establishes whether Tajik or Kyrgyz users are served through gateways in Kazakhstan, and no primary document available to Corridor Signal from those governments sets out the conditions attached to their permits. If traffic for neighbouring markets does run through Kazakh gateways, the conditions Kazakhstan attached to Starlink in 2025 on information security and communications would in practice travel with it, which makes the content of those conditions, still unpublished in the documents reviewed here, a regional rather than a national question.

Read on Corridor Signal

The contrast makes Türkiye the clearest case in the corridor of a market where the licensing question for LEO broadband is still open, and where the incumbent's own filing explains what is at stake.

The authorisation record

Method: the Turkish rows come from Turkcell's Form 20-F for 2025, filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on 17 April 2026, in its risk factors, its description of Turkish telecoms regulation and its operating data. The Kazakh rows come from the digital ministry's June 2025 statement, published on the state Otandastar Foundation's site, and from VEON's release of 29 September 2026. No Turkish regulator document on LEO services was available to Corridor Signal.

How a licence would work in Türkiye

Under the Electronic Communications Law, as summarised in the filing, the regulator, the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (ICTA), authorises services either by notification, where no scarce resource is allocated, or by granting usage rights where frequencies or satellite positions must be assigned. Usage rights can run for up to 25 years. Where only a limited number of operators can use a resource, the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure sets the criteria, including the authorisation policy for services that need a national satellite position and frequency band, the start date, the duration and the number of operators, while the ICTA grants the authorisation.

That structure matters because a LEO broadband service needs both spectrum rights and, in practice, ground infrastructure. Turkcell's wording, "subject to legislative approval", suggests that its reading is that the existing rules would need changing, not simply an application to the regulator. The filing does not say what change it expects or when.

Satellite services as such are not new in Türkiye. Turkcell Superonline has been authorised as a satellite communication service provider since 24 March 2009, and Turkcell's tower company, Global Tower, holds a satellite service licence from the ICTA and runs closed VSAT and SCPC networks with more than a thousand terminals for its own mobile network, corporate customers and public institutions, according to the 20-F.

What LEO would compete with

Turkcell identifies the services LEO could substitute for. The obvious one is fixed wireless access. Its Superbox product, offered to households where its fibre is not available and run over 4.5G and 5G networks, had 716,100 subscribers at the end of 2025, up from 680,300 a year earlier, the filing shows. Superbox is the kind of service a satellite dish could replace in a village without fibre, which is why the risk is described as a substitute for existing services rather than a new market.

The 5G licence adds a timing element. Turkcell must cover at least 95 per cent of the population of every settlement of 500 or more people by 1 January 2028 under its 5G authorisation, according to the same document. An LEO authorisation before then would let satellite operators reach the same small settlements that terrestrial operators are being required to cover.

Kazakhstan resolved the question by agreement. In June 2025 its digital ministry said Starlink had committed to comply fully with Kazakh legislation on information security and communications, which allowed citizens to buy, operate and register terminals legally, according to the ministry statement. In September 2026 Beeline Kazakhstan launched Starlink's satellite-to-mobile service, according to a VEON release. In that model a licensed mobile operator sells the satellite service to its own customers.

Türkiye has not published an equivalent decision in any document reviewed here. Until it does, Turkcell's risk factor is the most specific public statement of where LEO broadband stands in the country, and of who would feel the change first.

Read on Corridor Signal

The route runs Dushanbe, Khorog, Kulma, Karasu and Beijing. Of the 1,010 km in Tajikistan, 435 km cross the high mountains of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region, and the Tajik network meets China's at the Kulma pass, at 4,363 m. The Chinese segment from Beijing to the border is about 6,100 km, the report says. Corridor Signal has not seen a route map from either operator.

Initial capacity, and what is only planned

The first stage uses a 16-fibre cable with DWDM equipment, which gives the initial capacity of up to 1 Tbps. Capacity is to rise to 10 Tbps as more multiplexing equipment is installed, Avesta reports, and the infrastructure's technical potential runs to several hundred Tbps in the longer term. Both are plans, not built capacity, according to Avesta and Fergana, which attributes the launch announcement to the Communications Service. The line also connects Tajiktelecom directly to the Hong Kong Internet eXchange, HKIX, and is the country's fifth international connection point, both reports say.

Tajikistan's stated goal is 2 Tbps of total international capacity by 2030, according to Avesta. The new route on its own, at full initial load, would supply half of that. In July the head of the Communications Service, Isfandiyor Sadullo, put international bandwidth at 500 Gbps, double the level of a year earlier, The Times of Central Asia reported. The two figures measure different things: 500 Gbps is the country's international bandwidth across all its routes, while 1 Tbps is the initial ceiling of one route, so they cannot be added together.

From 2 Gbps to a terabit

The scale of the change shows in an older baseline. A 2014 study for the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific estimated Tajikistan's international bandwidth at 2 to 3 Gbps at the end of 2012, recorded fibre links to Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, and said a link to China was reportedly under way but could not be confirmed as active, according to the ESCAP study. It also found that none of the neighbouring markets offered affordable IP transit.

The line was later than officials had said. In August the Communications Service said the trunk line and its new international connection point would be fully operational by the end of September 2026, the agency Prime reported, citing the state news agency Khovar. The launch came on 17 October.

What is not published

None of the reports gives the project's cost or how it was financed, the price of transit on the route, how much of the 1 Tbps is already sold, or whether other Tajik operators can buy capacity on it. The fibre's link to the domestic network matters for that last question: the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is considering a sovereign loan of up to EUR 48.4 million for Tajikistan's fibre backbone and open-access rural broadband, Corridor Signal reported, with an approval date of 16 December.

The route also bears on how traffic is exchanged at home. Tajikistan had the highest share of networks connected to a local exchange point among the corridor's countries in the Internet Society data Corridor Signal compared, and the HKIX link adds a direct path to an exchange in Hong Kong. The Corridor Capacity Tracker covers subsea routes and does not yet track terrestrial lines such as this one.

Read on Corridor Signal

What Kazakhstan's main carrier sells

The clearest public record of the transit trade is Kazakhtelecom's 2024 annual report. Its corporate business division approved a new version of its Corporate Segment Price List that year, which the company says "enabled the creation of more competitive conditions in the international telecommunications services market", according to the report's corporate business section. The report does not reproduce the list.

It does list the year's international deals. Kazakhtelecom concluded contracts for 6x100 Gbit/s of transit channels on the China to Europe route with China Mobile International (UK), China Unicom Global and China Telecommunications Corporation, organised 2x100 Gbit/s on the Europe to Uzbekistan route for Uzbektelecom and 1x100 Gbit/s on the Europe to Kyrgyzstan route for Kyrgyztelecom, and signed a memorandum with China Telecommunications Corporation to expand transit interconnection by 7x100 Gbit/s on the China to Europe route for 2025 to 2027, the same section says. The network section adds 6x100 Gbit/s of transit channels on the China to Russia route with 1+1 redundancy, and lists participation in the Caspian seabed line and expansion of China to Europe transit among the plans for 2025, according to the network report.

Added together, the channels organised or contracted in 2024 come to 15 waves of 100 Gbit/s, or 1.5 Tbit/s, before the memorandum, a Corridor Signal sum from the report. The report gives revenue only for the corporate segment as a whole, KZT 139.2 billion in 2024, which also covers telephony, data, internet and satellite services for businesses and the state, so the value of the transit contracts cannot be derived from it.

Scale against the new line

Set against those volumes, the Caspian line is large. The Azerbaijani presidency gives its capacity as more than 400 terabits per second (presidency), a design figure. Kazakhstan's digital minister has said it will add up to 6 Tbit/s, The Times of Central Asia reported, four times the transit channels Kazakhtelecom set up in 2024 on the Data Desk's sum. The documents reviewed do not say whether that 6 Tbit/s is lit on day one or how much of it the two shareholders keep for their own networks.

The incumbent route is overland to the north. Russian operators have been the principal suppliers of Kazakhstan's international bandwidth, according to a 2025 Internet Society report cited by The Times of Central Asia. A buyer's price for the Caspian path will therefore be set against what those routes cost, and none of the documents reviewed publishes that either.

Where prices are published

In the corridor, wholesale prices appear in public documents mainly where a government sets them. The protocol Türkiye approved on 15 October for a fibre network in northern Cyprus caps the wholesale price of unlimited fibre-to-the-home service at $18 per subscriber per month for packages of up to 100 Mbit/s, adds $5 for each further 100 Mbit/s, sets connection charges at $50 and indexes the caps to consumer prices every six months, according to the text in Türkiye's Official Gazette. That is an access price on a state-backed network, not a transit price, but it shows the form a published tariff takes.

The Caspian crossing sits at the other end of that range: a commercial asset owned by a joint venture of two operators and built without budget money, according to the Kazakh government. Its prices will be set in contracts like those in Kazakhtelecom's report, and the 2024 list shows who the obvious first buyers are: Chinese carriers sending traffic to Europe, and the state operators of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. None of the documents reviewed says whether any of them has been offered capacity on the new line. Part 5 looks at the rules that govern transit, and at who regulates the price of capacity in each country.

Read on Corridor Signal

The ministry's page says the agreement covers space technologies, satellite development, scientific research, industrial cooperation and capacity building. It names the document the "Preliminary Agreement on the Development of Cooperation Potential in the Space Industry within the Organization of Turkic States" and says it was signed during the 77th International Astronautical Congress in Antalya. It describes the agreement as an important step towards institutional cooperation among OTS members. Shukhrat Kadirov, director of Uzbekistan's Uzcosmos Agency, attended the meeting. The page does not name the signing agencies or the other signatories, and it does not mention OTS-SAT.

The Astana Times called the document a framework agreement and gave the same four signatories and the same scope, with specialist training added. It did not state the date of signing, though the congress ran from 5 to 9 October. It quoted OTS Secretary General Kubanychbek Omuraliev as saying the agreement demonstrates the organisation's commitment to scientific, technological and industrial cooperation, and Kazakh digital minister Zhaslan Madiyev as saying he expects OTS-SAT to become the first practical space project of the OTS.

The same report says OTS-SAT is a 12U satellite developed by Kazakhstan's Ghalam company in Astana, its engineering model has been assembled, and it is meant to demonstrate technologies in orbit and test new subsystem solutions. The Times of Central Asia describes Ghalam as a Kazakh-French joint venture that develops spacecraft and components at the Astana assembly and testing complex.

The launch date has moved. In October 2025, after the OTS heads of state council hosted by Azerbaijan, Anadolu reported that the group would pool resources to speed up the project, with a target launch year of 2026. On 30 March the OTS secretariat said a working group meeting in Tashkent had discussed finalising the manufacturing stage of the satellite and had called for continued work on satellite systems, ground infrastructure and data processing. None of the sources reviewed gives a reason for the change to 2027. Kazakhstan's government separately set out on 6 October plans for six new Earth remote sensing satellites; its summary does not mention OTS-SAT or the Antalya agreement.

AKIpress, reporting the 30 March meeting of OTS space agency heads in Tashkent, said participants were working to finalise a space industrial agreement meant to streamline cooperation in space infrastructure, industrial manufacturing and emerging technologies, and that more than 170 students from member states had received training at the Turkic Space Explorers Academy. The secretariat's page on the working group meeting said the group had reviewed a draft document titled "Space Industrial Agreement for Capacity Development of Collaboration within the Organization of Turkic States", but did not say whether it was signed or adopted. The title of the document signed in Antalya differs, and none of the accounts says whether the two are the same text. The ministry page and the Astana Times also describe the document differently, as preliminary and as a framework.

No account gives a budget, a cost-sharing formula, a launch provider or the location of ground facilities. The items to track are:

• publication of the agreement's text and the list of signing agencies;
• a stated launch provider and date for OTS-SAT;
• whether other OTS members join the agreement.

Read on Corridor Signal

Read side by side, Türksat's own releases from March to July and Anadolu's account of the October protocol show a wider remit and few disclosed terms: none gives an investment amount, and the satellite agreements give no launch dates or capacity splits.

The four moves

• China, 8 October: Anadolu reported that Selman Demirel, deputy general manager for satellite services, and China Satcom's chief executive Ma Haiquan signed a "comprehensive protocol" at the 77th International Astronautical Congress in Antalya. It covers UAV communication systems, satellite-based IoT and smart border security, with a joint steering committee that meets every three months. The report gives no values or delivery dates. It extends an October 2025 pair of cooperation agreements, one with Chinasat Communication, whose chief executive was also Ma Haiquan, covering in-flight internet, maritime and disaster communications.
• Qatar, 30 June: Türksat and Es'hailSat agreed a strategic partnership for Es'hail-3/Türksat-Biruni, a high-throughput Ka-band satellite at 50 degrees East, targeting the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, Central Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. The release gives no capacity split, investment amount or launch date.
• Data centre, 23 July: At the Gölbaşı foundation-stone ceremony, Türksat said the campus will have 33 MVA of installed power, 6,300 square metres of white space and six system halls, with phase one planned for the first quarter of 2028. Transport Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu said "we are establishing data sovereignty on our own soil". The release states no investment figure.
• Türksat 7A, 29 April: General Manager Ahmet Hamdi Atalay said production of the satellite is expected to begin in 2026, following Türksat 6A, without naming a manufacturer, orbit or capacity.

Reading the gaps

The data centre figure needs care. MVA measures apparent power and MW real power, so 33 MVA cannot be read as 33 MW without a power factor that Türksat does not state. The company has also described the capacity gain in different terms: Uraloğlu said physical capacity would rise threefold in phase one and more than eightfold in phase two, while Türksat chairman Mücahit Arman said current capacity would rise eightfold on completion, according to the release. The base for those multiples is not given. In December 2025 Atalay said the tender was in its final stage and that construction would begin in 2026; the foundation stone was laid on 23 July.

For satellites, the same December interview said Türksat 7A would replace Türksat 3A, which completed its design life in 2023, at 42 degrees East no later than 2030. That is the only dated target among the satellite programmes. Es'hail-3/Türksat-Biruni has none. The Qatar release says Es'hailSat is wholly owned by the Qatar Investment Authority and that the partners will combine satellite assets, ground infrastructure, distribution networks and customer relationships, so the project pairs Türkiye's national operator with a Qatari state-owned one.

Central Asia

Central Asia appears as a market, not yet as a contracted customer base. The Es'hail-3 release names it as a target region. At the Space Technology Conference in Tashkent on 31 March, Türksat's delegation met, among others, Tajikistan's Digital Development and Satellite Communications Centre, and the release reported consensus but no signed agreements. The Gölbaşı release says the data centre is also meant to serve neighbouring and Turkic countries as a regional hub, without naming any customer.

The test is whether any of the four moves produces a contract with a stated value or a delivery date. Until then, the agreements show direction rather than commitments.

Read on Corridor Signal

The summary attaches no period to the revenue figure. The space passages formed part of a report by Zhaslan Madiyev, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development.

The summary said the creation of KazSat-3R is planned by 2029 to replace current spacecraft. The government gave more detail on 23 July, when it said Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov had signed a resolution allocating 10.4 billion tenge from the government reserve to the project. The release said the planned service life of KazSat-3 ends in 2029 and that 19 telecom operators and more than 2 million television subscribers are connected to the system.

The Times of Central Asia, reporting the allocation, put it at about $22.3 million. Neither the July release nor the October summary names a manufacturer or gives a total project cost.

In remote sensing, the October summary said three satellites are operational, with the economic impact of space monitoring totalling 977 billion tenge over five years. Plans include six new satellites, three high-resolution and three medium-resolution, to improve imaging accuracy and coverage, and an international constellation of 14 satellites by 2030. The summary does not say how the 14 would be composed.

It also said three export projects worth $70 million are being implemented with Mongolia, Congo and Nigeria. In January, The Times of Central Asia quoted Madiyev as saying that expected export volume would be about $75 million and that at least five or six remote sensing satellites would be launched in the coming years. That report did not name the destination countries. Neither account explains how the $75 million and $70 million figures relate.

The October summary gives no launch dates, manufacturer, budget or contract terms for the new satellites or the export projects. It also does not say how the 977 billion tenge economic impact was calculated. The items to track are:

• the procurement route and manufacturer for KazSat-3R;
• the first launch date for the six planned remote sensing satellites;
• whether the government publishes the terms of the export projects.

Read on Corridor Signal

A satellite with an expanded payload in the Ku and Ka bands would have cost the budget 153 billion tenge, and with limited resources the authorities considered such a project unprofitable, the outlet reported. In October, the two foreign low-orbit systems the state uses for remote villages and schools moved to commercial licences. Starlink and OneWeb obtained them on 2 October, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development Zhaslan Madiyev told deputies of the Kurultai, Kazinform reported on 22 October. Read side by side, the two replies show high-throughput capacity left off the national satellite on cost grounds and foreign constellations licensed to sell satellite broadband. Neither sets out the terms of that arrangement.

The same BES.media report cited the digital ministry as saying the communications and broadcasting satellite KazSat-3 will be replaced as planned in 2029, and noted that the Republican Space Communications Centre had earlier announced a tender to build KazSat-3R. It does not give the cost of KazSat-3R as specified. The government's later funding for the project is covered in our report on KazSat revenue and the new imaging satellites.

A deputy of the Mazhilis objected in an inquiry addressed to Madiyev, Kazinform reported on 22 April. He criticised the use of Starlink and OneWeb as an alternative to the national KazSat system, said the emphasis on them as alternatives to domestic satellites carried direct risks to the country's sovereignty, and argued that the refusal to include satellite internet had been justified only by the 153 billion tenge cost, without a thorough comparative analysis being presented. He asked the government to review the parameters of KazSat-3R, taking into account the priority of national security and the need for full autonomy of strategic communication channels. BES.media reported that he also said the participation of world leaders in the space industry in state procurement should be considered.

The October licences

Madiyev's October reply lists what the two operators did before they were licensed: they met requirements on special investigative measures, connected to the telecommunications network management centre and built ground infrastructure, according to Kazinform. Those conditions bear on the sovereignty concern the deputy raised in April, although the reply as reported does not refer to it. Madiyev said satellite links can provide backup communications if ground infrastructure is damaged, and that two more foreign systems, Amazon Leo and China's Shanghai SpaceSail, are expected to enter the market in 2027.

The expectation of further foreign entrants predates both replies. In January, the government's summary of a session on digital transformation said that "in addition to the three current operators, the entry of two foreign companies is expected" in satellite internet. The same summary planned the production of five to six Earth remote sensing satellites at a domestic facility and did not mention KazSat or broadband capacity on a national satellite.

What each document says

Method: each row comes from the document named, linked above: the government's English-language summary of 6 January, the Russian-language reports of BES.media and Kazinform of 22 April, and Kazinform's Chinese-language report of 22 October, translated by Corridor Signal.

Two entrants expected in 2027, a replacement satellite in 2029

• 2027: the expected entry of Amazon Leo and SpaceSail, and whether their licences carry the conditions Starlink and OneWeb met;
• 2029: the planned replacement of KazSat-3, whose service life ends that year, by KazSat-3R;
• not yet dated: publication of the Starlink and OneWeb licence terms.

Read on Corridor Signal

That ownership model shapes how capacity on the route will be sold. A line financed by two operators through a joint venture has to recover its cost from the circuits and wavelengths it sells, on terms its owners set. The presidency says the line will add international connectivity for Kazakhstan and create conditions for attracting global technology companies and for developing cloud services and artificial intelligence infrastructure, according to the launch release. The launch documents give no price, no lit capacity and no terms for buyers outside the two shareholders.

What the official documents establish

Method: each row is taken from one of two primary documents, the Kazakh presidency's release of 15 October and the Kazakh government's release of 5 August, both published in Russian and translated by Corridor Signal. Figures that do not appear in those two documents, including capacity and cost, are kept out of the table and discussed below with their sources.

What the documents leave out

Capacity. Neither Kazakh government release states a design or a lit capacity; the Azerbaijani presidency's account of the launch gives more than 400 terabits per second, without saying which of the two it is (presidency). Design capacity is the ceiling of what the fibre pairs can carry once fully equipped. Lit capacity is the amount equipped and saleable on the first day, and it grows as the owner adds transmission equipment against orders. A buyer prices against the second number, not the first.

Cost. The Kazakh government's release of 18 June 2024 gave more than 23 billion tenge of operators' investment for a line of 370 km. On that figure, which neither 2026 release repeats, the build cost comes to at least 60 million tenge per kilometre, a Corridor Signal calculation. That is the capital base a capacity price has to recover, before operating costs.

Demand. Kazakhstan's Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development estimates that the route could help more than double the country's international data transit to 21.6 terabits per second in the coming years, the Times of Central Asia reported. The newspaper also reported, citing Tengrinews, that the chairman of Kazakhtelecom's management board, Bagdat Mussin, expects adjustments to the line to continue to the end of 2026, with the benefits felt no earlier than early 2027.

Alternatives. Citing a 2025 Internet Society report, the Times of Central Asia said Russian operators have been the principal suppliers of Kazakhstan's international bandwidth. Part of the value of the Caspian segment to a buyer is therefore diversity: a second path towards Europe that does not cross Russia.

What a buyer still needs to know

The presidency describes the line as part of a new route linking Kazakhstan, other Central Asian countries and China with Europe, and says it can be connected to systems in the Mediterranean and Black Sea, according to the release. The Caspian crossing is one segment of that path. A circuit from Almaty to a European hub would also need terrestrial capacity across Kazakhstan to Aktau, across Azerbaijan and onward through Georgia or Türkiye before a sea crossing or a land route into Europe. The releases do not say whether CaspiLink will sell only the Caspian segment or end-to-end services with partners on either shore.

Four disclosures would settle most of the pricing questions: the lit capacity at commercial launch; whether capacity is sold as leases, as indefeasible rights of use or both; whether operators other than the two shareholders can buy on published terms; and the date of commercial service after the commissioning and testing that the government scheduled for the autumn, according to its August statement. Until the joint venture or its shareholders publish them, the cost of the route to a buyer is unknown, and claims about its price against existing paths cannot be checked.

Read on Corridor Signal

Zhaslan Madiyev, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development, gave the account in a reply to a query from deputies of the Kurultai. Two more low-orbit operators, Amazon Leo and China's Shanghai SpaceSail, are expected to enter the market in 2027, the same report says.

Both companies had first met the technical requirements for commercial communications services, the report says: requirements on special investigative measures, connection to the telecommunications network management centre and the construction of ground infrastructure. It does not give the terms, duration or fees of the licences, or name the legal entities that hold them.

Where the two systems are used

OneWeb opened a ground station in the village of Kokterek in the Almaty region in October 2024 and has provided service in Kazakhstan since January 2025, Madiyev said. Under the Accessible Internet national project, 329 remote villages were connected to OneWeb in 2025, and the number of villages with public Wi-Fi points running on OneWeb terminals rose to 362 in 2026. Starlink terminals are installed in 1,798 schools, and residents and businesses in remote areas and at tourist sites also use the service, Kazinform reported.

On the project's own count, satellite accounts for most of its connections so far. The Tenge, which reported the same reply, said 391 rural settlements had been connected under the project to date, 44 by fibre-optic lines and 347 by satellite. Of the 3,008 settlements in the long-term plan, 2,747 are to receive fibre and 261 satellite links, and satellite service for some villages is treated as a temporary solution until fibre is built, the outlet reported. Madiyev also said satellite links can provide backup communications if ground infrastructure is damaged, Kazinform reported.

How the timetable moved

In January the government said that in satellite internet, "in addition to the three current operators, the entry of two foreign companies is expected", in its summary of Madiyev's report to a session chaired by Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov. It named neither the operators nor a date. The same summary said internet access would appear on Kazakhstan Temir Zholy trains and Air Astana aircraft.

In May, Kapital.kz reported an earlier reply by the minister to deputies. It said 505 rural settlements had been given internet access by satellite under the Accessible Internet project, 329 through OneWeb and 176 through Starlink, that more than 1,800 remote rural schools had been connected through Starlink since 2023, and that 27 passenger routes of Kazakhstan Temir Zholy were to get internet through OneWeb and Starlink by the end of 2026. Separately from the reply, the outlet noted that talks had been reported on SpaceSail entering the Kazakh market in 2026. The October reply gives 2027 for both newcomers.

The counts do not line up. The 505 settlements with satellite access under the project in May are more than the 347 satellite connections The Tenge reported in October, and May's figure of more than 1,800 schools connected through Starlink is above October's 1,798. Neither reply, as reported, reconciles them.

What the reply leaves out

Amazon's network, then called Kuiper, and Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology, the company behind the SpaceSail constellation, were among four low-orbit partners the government listed in July 2025, as Corridor Signal's report on the village connection programme sets out. The October reply, as reported, does not say whether Amazon Leo or SpaceSail has applied for a licence, or whether gateways in Kazakhstan will carry traffic for neighbouring countries. It also does not mention Beeline Kazakhstan's satellite-to-mobile service with Starlink, launched in September.

Three items to watch:

• publication of the licence terms for Starlink and OneWeb, which neither report gives;
• licence applications by Amazon Leo and SpaceSail before their expected entry in 2027;
• the national project's year-end count against its plan to connect 2,131 villages in total by the end of 2026, including those connected in 2025, as The Tenge reported it.

Read on Corridor Signal

The account says a Kazakh subsidiary of CONTEC is expected to be established in the near future. It gives one figure, 17 ground stations that CONTEC manages worldwide, and no investment amount, output target or timetable.

Zhaslan Madiyev, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development, visited CONTEC's assembly and testing complex and met Lee Sung-hee, chairman of the board, the account says. The discussion covered CONTEC's plans to invest in the Ghalam project, joint production of satellites and components, and development of a ground station network. It also covered a manufacturing hub in Kazakhstan for satellite components, with supplies to Central Asia, the Middle East and Europe, possible localisation of large ground antenna manufacturing and AI-based processing of satellite imagery for Earth remote sensing analysis. The ground stations CONTEC manages include sites in Chile, the United States, South Africa and Australia.

The account says details of the cooperation are to be presented during President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev's state visit to South Korea. Kursiv, which reported the meeting the next day, described CONTEC Space Group as comprising CONTEC, Asia Pacific Satellite Corporation and Texas Space Communications, and as a supplier of onboard computers for South Korean government satellites. It did not give a date for the visit.

Agreements reported afterwards

Later accounts describe more concrete steps. Trend, citing the ministry's press service, reported on 17 September that during the state visit Kazakhstan signed a strategic cooperation agreement with CONTEC covering satellite manufacturing, ground infrastructure, Earth remote sensing data and market expansion, and an investment agreement involving Ghalam, CONTEC and APSI to strengthen Ghalam's capabilities. It also reported a deal between Qazaqstan Gharysh Sapary and the South Korean firm Nara Space Technology to supply satellite data for monitoring methane emissions, and a third meeting of a working group with the Korea AeroSpace Administration. Trend gave no contract values.

The Times of Central Asia described Ghalam as a Kazakh-French joint venture that develops spacecraft and components at the satellite assembly and testing complex in Astana, and Qazaqstan Gharysh Sapary as the state-owned operator of the Earth observation system. It did not name the French partner. The Kursiv report said CONTEC was considering an investment in Ghalam, while Trend described a signed investment agreement, so the status of the commitment is not consistent across the accounts reviewed.

How it fits the national programme

The government said on 6 October that three Earth remote sensing satellites are operational and that it plans six new ones, three high-resolution and three medium-resolution, and an international constellation of 14 satellites by 2030. It also reported three export projects worth $70 million with Mongolia, Congo and Nigeria. The Times of Central Asia noted that earlier plans called for nine satellites by 2030, six from Kazakhstan and one each from three partner countries, with a possible expansion to 14. The government summary does not mention CONTEC or say who would build the six satellites. A supply chain for components and ground stations would be one way to serve both the domestic programme and the export contracts, but no document reviewed says that this is the plan.

Subsidiary, terms and supplier still open

• whether the Kazakh subsidiary is registered and what capital it carries;
• whether the government publishes the strategic agreement or the Ghalam investment terms;
• whether CONTEC or Ghalam is named as supplier for any of the six planned satellites.

Read on Corridor Signal

The summary describes the project as a hyper-highway cable. Its passage on the project does not name the contractor, set out the route or give a capacity figure. The Times of Central Asia, citing a ministry project description, reported on 13 October that the backbone is designed for at least 12 Tbps of transit traffic, with commissioning planned for the end of 2026. The same outlet put the length laid so far at more than 2,200 km, which is consistent with half of 4,511 km.

The summary also reports progress on rural connectivity, with 370 villages connected and 11,819 km of communication lines laid this year against a plan for the year of 1,600 villages.

Why the route matters

Kazakhstan's international traffic still depends heavily on Russian transit. The Caspian Policy Center estimates that about 95 per cent of Kazakhstan's outbound international internet traffic passes through Russia, according to The Times of Central Asia. For scale, the same outlet gave Kazakhstan's international internet capacity as about 11.1 Tbps in 2024 and reported that Kazakhtelecom's 2024 report lists 200 Gbps of Europe-Uzbekistan transit and 100 Gbps of Europe-Kyrgyzstan transit, in a separate article.

The West-East route was one of two projects reported together in February 2025. Silk Way TV said then that it would run along the China-Aktau route and carry internet traffic in transit as an alternative part of the network between Western Europe and Southeast Asia. Officials planned direct transit from Europe to China, it said, and Azamat Seriktayev, head of a department at the Telecommunications Committee, was quoted as saying that "Currently, most internet traffic from Europe bypasses the country."

The other project was the undersea section across the Caspian. In the 6 October summary the government said 390 km of cable had been laid along the Trans-Caspian line from Sumgayit to Aktau, with launch scheduled for October. The Times of Central Asia reported on 16 October that the presidents of Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan announced the launch in Baku on 15 October, and noted that operators have not disclosed how much traffic the cable will carry or how much could be redirected away from Russian networks.

Who is building it

The 6 October summary does not say who is financing or building the West-East route. In February 2025, The Times of Central Asia reported that the digital ministry had signed a cooperation memorandum on 6 February with Freedom Telecom Holding, a subsidiary of Freedom Holding Corp., covering a fibre route and data centres for transiting and storing international traffic. The investment was to be private and completion was scheduled for 2026, according to that report. The article did not give a cost.

None of the reports reviewed gives a route by city or border crossing, and the February 2025 report did not give a length, capacity or cost for the line. Freedom Holding Corp separately announced a $2 billion Sovereign AI Hub in Kazakhstan on 7 November 2025, to be built on Nvidia infrastructure at a site with 100 MW of available power, according to its press release; the release does not mention Freedom Telecom.

What to watch

With half of 4,511 km laid, roughly 2,250 km remain, and the government's commissioning target falls about 12 weeks after the 6 October session. The items to track are:

• whether the government publishes a route, contractor and capacity statement for the line;
• whether commissioning happens before the end of the year, as the government states;
• how much transit traffic moves off Russian routes once both the West-East and Trans-Caspian sections are in service.

Read on Corridor Signal

Aktau: a backbone still being built

On the Kazakh shore the cable meets a domestic network that is itself unfinished. The government said on 6 October that half of the 4,511 km West-East line had been laid and that it aimed to commission the line before the end of the year, according to its summary of a government session. When the project was announced in February 2025, Silk Way TV reported that the line would follow a China to Aktau route, "serving as an alternative part of the Western Europe - Southeast Asia global transport network".

The capacity figures on this side come from the digital ministry by way of the press. The West-East backbone is designed for at least 12 Tbit/s and the Caspian line will add capacity of up to 6 Tbit/s, The Times of Central Asia reported on 13 October; the same outlet put Kazakhstan's international internet capacity at about 11.1 Tbit/s in 2024. The ministry estimates that the new route could help more than double the country's international data transit to 21.6 Tbit/s, the outlet reported after the launch. The 6 October summary gives no route by city and no capacity for the West-East line, and none of the documents reviewed says how much of its capacity is reserved for traffic arriving from the Caspian.

Sumgayit: the landing that moved

The Azerbaijani end has changed since the crossing was first designed. In 2023 the operators described a main route to Siyazan and a reserve route from Kuryk to Buzovna, near Baku, Capacity reported. By February 2025 the Azerbaijani landing was given as Sumgayit, in the Silk Way TV report. The line on both shores belongs to CaspiLink B.V., a joint venture of Kazakhtelecom and AzerTelecom International that is responsible for its construction and operation, according to the 5 August release. A separate line proposed from Turkmenbashi would land at Siyazan, further north on the same coast, according to Turkmenistan's investment portal; no construction start has been published.

West of Sumgayit: three ways out of Georgia

The Azerbaijani presidency sets out the onward path in one sentence: the route will allow data from China and Central Asia to be transmitted to Europe "via Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Georgia, and onward through the Black Sea or Türkiye", according to its account. The documents reviewed do not describe the terrestrial route from Sumgayit to the Georgian border, the crossing point or the operator that would carry the traffic. On the Georgian coast, three subsea options appear in the public record.

• In service: the Caucasus Cable System, about 1,200 km from Poti to Balchik in Bulgaria, owned by Caucasus Online and in service since 2008. Its latest published lit capacity, 780 Gbit/s after an upgrade in 2016, is ten years old, according to Ocean News and Technology.
• Planned: Kardesa, which Vodafone Group and Vodafone Ukraine plan to land in Bulgaria, Türkiye, Georgia and Ukraine with more than 500 Tbit/s. The first landing, in Bulgaria, is planned for 2027, with the others to follow; the announcement gives no Georgian landing site or date.
• Proposed: the Black Sea Submarine Cable, a power link of about 1,155 km from Anaklia to Topraisar near Constanța in Romania that includes a fibre link estimated at USD 70 million to 90 million. It moved into preparation for a seabed survey at the end of July and has no final investment decision, oEnergetice reported.

The Türkiye option runs overland from Georgia, and no document reviewed sets out its route or its operators.

Read together, the documents establish two coastal end points and a joint venture that owns the crossing, but not the stations, the backhaul behind them or the onward capacity. On the Kazakh side the backhaul is under construction with a year-end target. On the Azerbaijani side the path to Georgia is not described. In Georgia the only subsea system in service has no lit capacity figure newer than 2016, and the two new systems have no Georgian landing date. Part 3 looks at the operators and how capacity on the Caspian segment will be sold.

Read on Corridor Signal

Pashinyan said Armenia has entered a new stage in developing its national space capabilities. He listed the country's two satellites so far: ARMASAT-1, built with European technology and launched by SpaceX in 2022, and HAYASAT-1 a year later, which he called the first Armenian satellite fully assembled and tested by Armenian specialists, the text says.

The new plan has two parts beyond the satellites. Armenia intends to build sovereign ground-based infrastructure and domestic capacity for satellite command and control and for data reception, processing and analysis. It also plans a distributed network of ground stations that could serve national needs and support international space missions. The text says the 2026-2031 government programme makes national space capabilities a standalone strategic objective, and that the 2026-2030 science strategy names space technologies and aerospace as a strategic priority. It adds that Armenia wants a larger role in international programmes so that its engineers and companies can contribute to designing and manufacturing space systems. Interfax reported that Pashinyan also said developing countries should take part in the space economy not only as users of technology and data but as partners in research, innovation and technological development.

What it does not say

The speech sets no date for launches, and names no budget, launch provider or satellite builder. The 2031 date appears only as the end of the government programme period. Report.az and Interfax both reported the plan without a launch date, but one regional outlet headlined the story "Armenia plans to operate three satellites by 2031", which reads the programme period as a deadline. The government text does not make that link.

The text also does not say whether the telecommunications satellite is meant to carry commercial traffic, government traffic or both, or whether it would be an Armenian-owned spacecraft or capacity leased from an operator.

Compute and the wider context

Pashinyan linked the space plan to artificial intelligence. He described a broader "Garden of AI Factories" concept and said the Firebird AI factory, developed with NVIDIA, has recently been inaugurated, the text says. Firebird said on 8 August that it had opened the site and named Perplexity as an early customer. The speech does not explain how the satellite data would be processed or where it would be stored. It also mentions a planned academic city linking universities, research institutions and industry, without connecting it to the satellite programme.

Kazakhstan has set out a larger programme. Its government said on 6 October that it plans six new remote sensing satellites and an international constellation of 14 by 2030, with three satellites already operating. The Armenian plan is smaller and, in the published text, less specific about numbers and timing.

Armenia's terrestrial connectivity base is a separate question. The Internet Society's Pulse tracker says 75 per cent of Armenia's 131 active networks can exchange traffic through ArmIX, and PeeringDB's public API listed nine colocation facilities in the country on 17 October. Both are self-reported records. Ground stations and data processing would add to the load on that base.

What to watch

• whether the government publishes a budget, a procurement route or a launch timetable;
• whether a foreign partner or manufacturer is named for the three satellites;
• the location and ownership of the first ground stations.

Read on Corridor Signal

According to the release, the service works on standard smartphones without a satellite phone, antenna or other special equipment, and Starlink satellites work with existing LTE phones where the sky is visible. Customers activate and manage it through Janymda, Beeline Kazakhstan's super app. "During the initial period, the service will be available to customers free to experience," the release says.

VEON said Beeline Kazakhstan serves 11.8 million mobile customers and around one million fixed internet customers. The release says Starlink has 650 launched satellites in low-Earth orbit delivering data, voice, video and messaging to devices in remote locations. It names emergency and rescue services, road and utility services, tourists, mountaineers, travellers and people working at remote sites as groups that could benefit.

What the government says

The government gave its own description a week later. In its summary of Deputy Prime Minister Zhaslan Madiyev's report to a 6 October session, it said that, together with Beeline and Starlink Mobile, Direct-to-Cell technology had been launched, providing text messaging and a basic level of internet anywhere in the country through direct satellite-to-smartphone connectivity. Android support is already provided, it said, while iOS support is in progress.

The two descriptions differ in emphasis. VEON speaks of access to apps and messaging in areas without terrestrial coverage, while the government describes text messaging and a basic level of internet nationwide. The VEON release does not give a price for after the free period, coverage figures or a count of activated users, and it does not name a regulator, although it credits the Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development as a collaborator.

The path to launch

Beeline Kazakhstan, the ministry and Starlink signed a memorandum of cooperation on satellite-to-mobile technology in November 2025, followed by the first practical trials in December, the VEON release says.

The ministry's relationship with Starlink dates back further. In June 2025 the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry announced an agreement with Starlink under which the company would follow Kazakhstan's national law when providing satellite internet. The minister said at the time that Starlink had until then operated in the country in pilot mode, providing access only to schools.

In February 2026 Madiyev said Kazakhstan planned to route internet traffic to neighbouring countries through Starlink gateway stations on its territory, The Times of Central Asia reported. The outlet said Tajikistan could receive the service as early as 2026, with Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan possible later. Starlink's fixed service itself launched in Tajikistan on 5 February, the same outlet reported.

Terrestrial gaps the service would fill

The same 6 October report gave a picture of the terrestrial network that satellite-to-phone service sits alongside. The government said 370 villages have been connected and 11,819 km of communication lines laid this year against a plan of 1,600 villages. It said coverage along 40,000 km of regional and national highways is planned for 2027, with the installation of more than 500 antenna-mast structures, and that more than 4,000 5G base stations have been installed in over 20 cities.

VEON has rolled the same service out elsewhere. It launched it with Banglalink in Bangladesh on 9 October, calling Bangladesh the first South Asian country to offer it, and said customers there need a 4G phone and a Banglalink SIM, according to a separate release.

Three questions remain open from the published material:

• what the service will cost once the free initial period ends, which the VEON release does not state;
• when iOS support will arrive, which the government describes only as in progress;
• what coverage or speed users can expect, as neither the release nor the government's summary gives figures.

Read on Corridor Signal

Read across, two of the five systems are in service, the Trans-Caspian line and the Poti to Balchik system; two are planned, Kardesa and the Georgia to Romania link; and the Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan line has no published status since the 2020 agreement. Only the two systems in service have a published lit or initial figure, and the older of those figures is more than ten years old.

What changed this month

The Trans-Caspian line moved from construction to launch. The Kazakh government said on 6 October that 390 km of cable had been laid between the shores at Sumgayit and Aktau (government summary), and the two presidents inaugurated the line on 15 October (presidency). Kazakhstan's digital minister has said the line will add capacity of up to 6 Tbit/s, against the stated capacity of more than 400 Tbit/s (interview). The operators have not published a lit capacity, and the ministry had scheduled testing and commissioning for completion by the end of 2026, The Times of Central Asia reported in July.

On the Black Sea, the latest published lit figure for the Poti to Balchik system dates from May 2016. Kardesa, announced in October 2025, plans its first landing in Bulgaria in 2027, with Türkiye, Georgia and Ukraine to follow (Vodafone). The Georgia to Romania power cable moved into preparation for a marine survey at the end of July and has no final investment decision, according to oEnergetice, which cites a feasibility study that puts the cost of the planned fibre link at USD 70 to 90 million.

Method

Announced capacity is the design or maximum capacity stated by an owner, a government or a supplier. Lit or initial capacity is capacity stated as activated, equipped or initially available. Figures are reproduced as published, without conversion or estimation. Primary documents are used where available; where a cell rests on a news report, the report is linked and named in the sources. Not yet tracked: older Black Sea systems and terrestrial routes through Türkiye, until current figures are found, and the Kuryk to Buzovna reserve route described in 2023 (Capacity), for which no status has been published. The tracker is updated monthly.

Read on Corridor Signal

Under the sea

Laying began in July, when a cable-laying vessel left the port of Baku and started work towards Aktau, The Times of Central Asia reported. The outlet said the armoured cable had been made and tested in China, delivered to the Kazakh port of Kuryk and taken to Baku for installation, and that the route had been chosen to avoid anchorage areas and military exercise zones. By early August the cable had reached the Kazakh coast and crews had begun connecting it to coastal infrastructure, Silk Way TV reported.

On 6 October the Kazakh government said 390 km of cable had been laid between the shores at Sumgayit and Aktau, in its summary of a government session. The presidency gave the line's length as about 380 km; neither document reconciles the two figures.

Where the data goes next

The presidency's account sets out the wider path. The new route "will allow data from China and Central Asia to be transmitted to Europe via Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Georgia", and from there onward through the Black Sea or Türkiye, it said. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev summed up the project in one line: "Yes, this is the Middle Corridor in a digital form."

East of Aktau, the cable meets Kazakhstan's national network. Kazakhtelecom's backbone reaches all of the country's border areas and connects it with China, Russia, Europe and the Central Asian republics, according to the 2024 annual report of the state holding Samruk-Kazyna. A second domestic route is being built: the government said on 6 October that half of the 4,511 km West-East line had been laid and that it aimed to commission the line before the end of the year (same summary).

West of Sumgayit, the documents reviewed for this article do not set out the terrestrial path to the Georgian border or the onward links to Black Sea landings and Turkish networks. Part 2 of the series looks at the landing points.

How the route changed

The crossing has changed partners, capacity and landing point since it was first launched. In November 2019 the prime ministers of the two countries attended a ceremony in Aktau for a line of about 380 to 400 km with a capacity of at least 4 to 6 terabits per second, to be built by Kazakhstan's Transtelecom and KazTransCom with AzerTelecom and to enter service by the end of 2021, The Times of Central Asia reported, citing the Kazakh prime minister's press service. Those targets were missed, the outlet noted in July.

In March 2023 the two operators described a main route of more than 340 km from Aktau to Siyazan in Azerbaijan and a reserve route of about 330 km from Kuryk to Buzovna, near Baku, Capacity reported. That August, Kazakhtelecom told the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange that it held 50 per cent of CASPINET B.V. (KASE notice); Samruk-Kazyna's report describes that company as the project's joint venture with AzerTelecom, each holding half, and says it prepared tender documents and ran a tender for an engineering, procurement and construction contractor in 2024. The Kazakh government's release of 5 August 2026 names the line's builder and operator as CaspiLink B.V., a joint venture of Kazakhtelecom and AzerTelecom International (government release); the documents reviewed do not say whether CaspiLink B.V. and CASPINET B.V. are the same company. In June 2024 Kazakhstan's digital minister said the operators were investing more than $50.6 million, or more than 23 billion tenge, in a 370 km line with a maximum throughput of 400 terabits per second, Report.az reported, citing the government press service; the report placed the line between Aktau and Sumgayit.

Between the 2023 and 2024 descriptions, the Azerbaijani landing moved from Siyazan to Sumgayit. The documents reviewed do not explain the change, and none of them gives a status for the 2023 reserve route.

A southern crossing has been proposed. Turkmenistan's official investment portal describes a 300 km line between Turkmenbashi and Siyazan, to be built by Türkmentelekom and AzerTelecom with a capacity of at least 2 to 4 terabits per second, under an interstate agreement that Azerbaijan approved in April; bne IntelliNews reported the agreement in April 2020. The documents reviewed give no construction start.

Part 2 looks at the landing points at each end, Part 3 at the operators, Part 4 at what capacity costs and Part 5 at the rules that govern transit.

Read on Corridor Signal