Bangladesh to use its second submarine cable commercially from March

The commercial use of the second submarine cable will start in March, which aims to make the internet available for wider use.

Shamim Ahamedbdnews24.com
Published : 1 March 2017, 10:07 PM
Updated : 1 March 2017, 10:08 PM

State Minister for Post and Telecommunications Tarana Halim has said the commercial operations will start after the connection is inaugurated by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina within March.

The minister was speaking to the media after visiting the Kuakata Landing Station of the connection in Patuakhali on Wednesday.

Bangladesh got connected to its second submarine cable of South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe-5 (SEA-ME-WE-5) Consortium on Feb 21.

Tarana said the setting up of transmission link from Kuakata to capital Dhaka has been completed and trialled successfully.

She hoped it would be possible to provide Barisal, Khulna, Faridpur, Patuakhali and other districts in the region at cheaper rates after the commercial launch.

Bangladesh is getting 1500 gigabyte more bandwidth after hooking up to the new connection, according to Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL).

The country was connected to the first submarine cable, SEA-ME-WE-4, in 2005 through which the country gets up to 200 GBPS bandwidth.

Besides SEA-ME-WE-4, Bangladesh is also connected to six alternative submarine cables (International Terrestrial Cable or ITC).

The country uses more than 400 GBPS internet now. State-run BSCCL provides 12 GBPS while the rest is imported through ITCs from India.