Tripura to turn internet gateway

Tripura, after Mumbai and Chennai, is all set to emerge as the third internet gateway of India after commissioning of the submarine cable connectivity through Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh.

Tripura Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 4 July 2015, 02:36 PM
Updated : 4 July 2015, 02:38 PM

This was disclosed to media by Chief General Manager (CGM) of BSNL's NE-I circle DP Singh in Agartala on Saturday.

“This will be an important historical event for the Northeast,” he said.

“India’s international internet bandwidth gateways at present are located in Mumbai and Chennai. After four years of discussions, meetings, fights and negotiations in various fora we got this success.”

With this, in future mainland would depend on the Northeast for internet connectivity, Singh said.

“With the opening up of the 10 G link through Akhaurha (in Bangladesh) at a cost of Rs 8 crore annually the internet network in Tripura will become as good as Delhi, Bangalore or Chennai. Days are coming when the (tele) traffic of the mainland will be going through Northeast,” he said.

Union Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad will commission the project in Agartala sometime next week.

It has been estimated that in less than six months the work of laying the optical fibre, connecting Agartala with Bangladesh, will be completed.

The work is simultaneously in progress on the other sides of the border by the respective telecom service providers.

Singh said currently the northeast was getting internet connectivity through two major gateways in Mumbai and Chennai.

But due to distance there were often problems with the connectivity.

Internet connectivity through Cox’s Bazar port in Bangladesh would make high-speed, large bandwidth and unimpeded internet service available in Northeast, Singh said.

Singh said that for better and trouble-free internet connectivity BSNL was using optical fibre network of high towers of Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (PGCIL) and this was working far better than other cable networks.

He said that the BSNL in northeast had been looking up in terms of revenue as well as extension of services.