Govt moves to sell internet bandwidth to ITC operators at cheaper price

The government is giving the International Terrestrial Cable (ITC) operators an opportunity to buy internet bandwidth at cheaper price from the state-run submarine cable company.

Senior Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 16 April 2017, 04:01 PM
Updated : 16 April 2017, 04:01 PM

The move aims at selling the idle bandwidth of Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL) at a 'competitive' price along with cutting dependency on import, State Minister for Post and Telecom Tarana Halim told bdnews24.com on Sunday.

She said her ministry has written to BSCCL and Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC).

"We are checking how cheap the bandwidth price can be," the state minister said.

The six ITC operators working in Bangladesh currently buy internet bandwidth from India, but are not keen to buy from the BSCCL due to a ceiling of 10 percent as backup set by the authorities.

BSCCL Managing Director Md Monwar Hossain said they received the instruction to supply bandwidth to the ITC operators at cheaper price. "We are working on it," he said.

He said regulators BTRC was checking whether the ceiling for the ITC operators to buy up to 10 percent bandwidth as backup can be lifted.

The BSCCL now supplies 212 of its 300 gigabyte per second (GBPS) bandwidth in Bangladesh.

The BSCCL MD also said an additional 200 GBPS bandwidth will be added from Bangladesh's second submarine cable SEA-ME-WE-5 (South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 5) in May.

ITC operator Fiber@Home Chief Technology Officer Sumon Ahmed Sabir told bdnews24.com that 'good service' is as important as cheap price.