400G DWDM from Armenia to Frankfurt — with TEAM Telecom Armenia
Sofia Connect and TEAM Telecom Armenia brought a 400G coherent wavelength into production from Agarak on Armenia's southern border through to Frankfurt — engineered to route around Türkiye using the Caucasus Cable System submarine link across the Black Sea.
The Challenge
Armenia is a landlocked market with a very particular connectivity problem: most of its wholesale capacity traditionally transits Türkiye or Russia, concentrating risk on a small number of terrestrial paths. For a national carrier like TEAM Telecom Armenia, continuing to grow — and continuing to meet the capacity and resilience expectations of hyperscaler, enterprise, and carrier customers — means adding a genuinely independent westbound route into the European core. The requirement was clear: 400G of coherent capacity, deterministic engineering, and a path that does not depend on Türkiye.
The Partner
TEAM Telecom Armenia is one of Armenia's leading telecom operators and runs a substantial national backbone, with long-standing cross-border fiber into Georgia. Sofia Connect operates a regional DWDM backbone across Southeast Europe — Bulgaria, the Black Sea coast, and onward into Frankfurt — and owns diverse infrastructure into Balchik, where the Caucasus Cable System lands on the Bulgarian shore. Together the two networks form a natural end-to-end path from the Armenian border to Western Europe, combining regional reach on each side with a submarine leg that genuinely avoids Türkiye.
The Outcome
A single 400G wavelength, live in Q1 2026, delivered from Agarak through Tbilisi and Poti, across the Black Sea on CCS, and westbound through Balchik, Sofia, and onward to Frankfurt. The service is carried on Sofia Connect's own backbone through the Bulgarian segment, with diverse fiber routes and a standard carrier-grade operations model. For TEAM Telecom Armenia and its customers, the result is a second, independent westbound corridor — designed for scale, and engineered so that the dominant terrestrial transit geography of the region is no longer a single point of dependency.
What the implementation delivers
400G coherent wavelength end-to-end
A single 400G service delivered from Agarak on the Armenian border through to Frankfurt — one of Europe's most important interconnection hubs — on a modern coherent DWDM platform.
Submarine bypass of Türkiye
Traffic crosses the Black Sea on the Caucasus Cable System submarine route between Poti and Balchik, removing dependency on Türkiye terrestrial transit and reducing geopolitical risk on the path.
Diverse, protected backbone
The wave is carried over Sofia Connect's fully owned and managed backbone through Balchik → Sofia → Frankfurt, with diverse fiber and 24/7 carrier-grade operations.
The route, segment by segment
Agarak → Tbilisi → Poti → CCS submarine → Balchik → Sofia → Frankfurt. Every segment is engineered to keep the end-to-end path off Türkiye terrestrial transit.
- 01
Agarak (AM) → Tbilisi (GE)
Armenia–Georgia cross-border fiber. Hand-off on the Armenian side at Agarak; transit across Georgia on partner infrastructure.
- 02
Tbilisi (GE) → Poti (GE)
Georgian domestic DWDM path westbound to the Black Sea landing station at Poti.
- 03
Poti (GE) → Balchik (BG)
Caucasus Cable System submarine link across the Black Sea — the core element that takes the route around Türkiye entirely.
- 04
Balchik (BG) → Sofia (BG)
Sofia Connect's own Bulgarian backbone from the Black Sea coast to the Sofia core — a PoP with dense onward reach into Europe.
- 05
Sofia (BG) → Frankfurt (DE)
European DWDM leg into Frankfurt — Sofia Connect's primary interconnection gateway to Western Europe, with onward reach to London, Amsterdam, and Paris.
“Sofia Connect has been a reliable partner for TEAM Telecom across multiple fronts — from European DWDM capacity to the wider regional connectivity we build together. Their engineering team is sharp, provisioning is on-time, and they run their network to a standard we're comfortable recommending. A professional carrier to do business with.”
Davit Hayrapetyan — Head of International Carrier Relations and Wholesale Business Division, TEAM Telecom Armenia
Why this route matters
For years, the practical options for westbound capacity out of the South Caucasus were limited: a terrestrial path through Türkiye, or a terrestrial path through Russia. Both routes concentrate risk — regulatory, political, and operational — on infrastructure that a carrier in Armenia or Georgia does not control.
The Caucasus Cable System changed the shape of that map. By landing in Poti and Balchik, it creates a submarine alternative across the Black Sea that sidesteps Türkiye entirely. What TEAM Telecom Armenia and Sofia Connect have done together is wire that submarine leg into a real, production 400G service all the way from the Armenian border to Frankfurt — one of Europe's three dominant interconnection hubs.
The result is not just more capacity. It is structural diversity for the region: a westbound corridor that does not share fate with the main Türkiye transit paths, engineered on modern coherent optics and carried end-to-end on operators that run their own backbones.
About this story
This case study describes a 400G DWDM implementation brought into production in Q1 2026 between TEAM Telecom Armenia and Sofia Connect. Published with the permission of TEAM Telecom Armenia. No specific customer performance numbers are disclosed; capacity, routing, and resilience characteristics are described at the network design level.
- Partner: TEAM Telecom Armenia
- Submarine system: Caucasus Cable System (Poti ↔ Balchik)
- Sofia Connect network: Explore the backbone
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