MOSCOW, August 10. /TASS/. Russia’s federal telecom operator, Rostelecom, will lay an underwater fiber optic communications line linking the Island of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands in the Far East under the federal target program for the socio-economic development of the Kurils in 2016-2025.

The project to be implemented in 2016-2018 is estimated at $51 million, of which 42 million would be allocated from the federal budget and the remaining nine million will come from off-budget sources.

The project provides for the construction of an underwater fiber optic communications line between Yuzhno-Sakhalins (Sakhalin Island), Kurilsk (Iturup Island), Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk (Kunashir Island), Krabozavodskoye (Shikotan Island). The overall capacity of the 940-kilometer data transmission line will be 40 Gbps.

Rostelecom is already working on another underwater fiber optic telecom line project in the Far East. The cable will run across the bottom of the Sea of Okhotsk and will be part of the Kamchatka-Sakhalin-Magadan 2,000-kilometer communications line. The project is to be commissioned in June 2016. The line’s designed capacity is 400 Gbps.