The US is now proposing to ease the restrictions on which it has insisted over export of fibre optic telephone equipment to the countries of the former Soviet Union – but not sufficiently to allow the proposed Trans-Siberian Lightline to go ahead: the new rules it is proposing to CoCom would allow the export of medium-capacity links between countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, and high-speed links from those countries to the rest of the world, with continued restrictions on cables that would pass near military and nuclear facilities – which is what still stymies the Lightline.
