End users of internet will not gain from bandwidth price cut, say operators

There will be no cut in the use of internet costs for the end users because of the conditional drop in bandwidth price in Bangladesh, International Internet Gateway (IIG) operators and Internet Service Providers (ISP) think.

Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL) announced the price cut on Monday, saying the internet gateways will get 1MBPS bandwidth at Tk 625 from Tuesday, down from Tk 1,068.

The 41 percent reduced price is applicable for 10GBPS (gigabyte per second) slab in Dhaka, Chittagong and Cox’s Bazar initially.

The IIG operators say only one or two among the 37 of them buy from the 10GBPS slab from the BSCCL.

IIG operator Fiber@Home Strategy Officer Sumon Ahmed Sabir told bdnews24.com on Tuesday the others buy 2.5-5GBPS from BSCCL and the rest bandwidth from International Terrestrial Cable (ITC) operators.

Sabir said he did not think any IIG operator will agree to buy from the 10GBPS slab, which means the reduction in price will not reach the users.

ISP Association Bangladesh (ISPAB) Secretary Emdadul Haque agreed.

He said the price cut was nothing but mere ‘eyewash by the BSCCL’.

“No IIG alone buys 10GBPS bandwidth from the BSCCL. So we’ll not be able to provide the benefit at user-level,” Haque said.

According to him, the BSCCL reduced the price of 1GBPS to Tk 900. “But we are buying at lesser rate from ITC for a long time.”

Besides the BSCCL, Bangladesh is connected to six alternative ITCs that sell bandwidth to the IIG operators.

According to regulator BTRC, the ISP and Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) had around 1.3 million users until the end of July.

Mobile-phone operator Grameenphone, which serves the largest number of internet users, says the payment for bandwidth makes up a small portion of their total internet cost.

“So the price reduction will not have a significant change in our spending. Even after this, we are charging 56 percent less on average for internet this year,” Grameenphone’s Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Mahmud Hossain told bdnews24.com.

The number of internet users crossed 50 million in July. Of them, 97 percent is being online on mobile phone.

BSCCL Managing Director Monwar Hossain on Monday said each megabyte cost $10 (Tk 794) in India, noting that the process to export bandwidth to the neighbour was underway.

“But it is being sold at Tk 1,068 in Bangladesh,” he said.

“This decision (to cut price) has been taken to bring down the prices and make the internet use popular,” he had added.

There is discontent among the internet subscribers over the price.

At a meeting of Digital Bangladesh Taskforce on Aug 6, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ordered the ISPs to make internet affordable for the people.

Bangladesh’s only submarine cable SEA-ME-WE-4 (South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 4) has a 200GBPS bandwidth, of which only about 30GBPS is being used.

The country will get another 1,300GBPS bandwidth after it is connected to a second submarine cable in December next year under a consortium.