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Submarine cable project

BTTB offered free landing station equipment

ABU SAEED KHAN, From Cairo
The Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) is going to be exempted from the costs of landing station equipment, which would link the country with a submarine cable network connecting Southeast Asia, Middle East and Western Europe (SEA-ME-WE).
It was revealed in the first meeting of SEA-ME-WE 4 submarine cable consortium, which ended in Cairo last Thursday.
The SEA-ME-WE 4 consortium cable would link Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Italy and
France. Each member country would have free access to the counterparts' cable landing point.
If Bangladesh government allows the BTTB to join this consortium the state monopoly would receive multi-million dollar equipment free of cost to run the submarine cable system. The BTTB would have to construct only the cable landing station building to accommodate these equipment.
The BTTB would also receive technical assistance to develop its human resources to maintain and operate the cable landing station.
Budgetary cost of this project is US$ 720 million, which would be equally shared by all members.
Bangladesh would pay between US$50 to $60 million to join this transcontinental network.
Moreover, the BTTB will not have to pay in advance to have Bangladesh linked with SEA-ME-WE 4. There is no provision of down payment, as the BTTB would pay the consortium according to the progress of the work of its own cable segment. The SEA-ME-WE 4 is scheduled to be operational by the first quarter of 2004.
Like its neighbours, joining the consortium would significantly reduce the BTTB's investment in the country's first submarine cable venture. It would lead to cheaper
international phone calls as well as high-speed Internet access from Bangladesh at a lower cost.
Altogether 29 officials representing 12 national telecom bodies and two private carriers from Asia-Pacific, Middle East and West Europe met in Cairo to discus the planning issues of rolling out the 12,000 kilometres long SEA-ME-WE 4 cable.
BTTB's member (Maintenance and Operations) and general manager along with the first secretary of Bangladesh embassy in Cairo attended the two-day meeting. The BTTB delegates also visited the Telecom Egypt's cable landing stations at Alexandria and Port Said.
A proposal containing 11 points of "Key Principles" regarding this multi-country submarine cable consortium was adopted at the end of the meeting. The SEA-ME-WE 4 consortium has aimed to provide cost effective capacity among its members.
Without directly referring to the recent bankruptcies of private submarine cable networks, the meeting cautioned about the over-
supply of bandwidth due to the unrealistic projection of voice and data traffic growth.
Contractor to build the SEA-ME-WE 4 would be selected through competitive bidding. Decisions would be made in this consortium through a minimum of 75 per cent vote of the members.
The parties would analyse these points and meet for the second time in Dubai during the first week of July to sign the memorandum of understanding (MoU) of the SEA-ME-WE 4 consortium.
The meeting also set aside $1 million to meet incidental expenses until all members of this consortium sign the final agreement. Then all the parties would equally share this cost.
The SEA-ME-WE 4 would be the fourth submarine cable venture of this consortium. All except the BTTB are members of the immediate past SEA-ME-WE 3 consortium submarine cable.
Their experience in operating SEA-ME-WE 3 was found advantageous in the Cairo meeting on SEA-ME-WE 4. The attendees were precise in discussion and referred to the business issues of SEA-ME-
WE 3 while planning the SEA-ME-WE 4.
The members decided to develop the construction and maintenance agreement (C&MA) of SEA-ME-WE 4 on the C&MA principles of SEA-ME-WE 3. It would save substantial time to complete the proposed submarine cable project.
Unlike the SEA-ME-WE 3, the business model of SEA-ME-WE 4 would be highly private sectorfriendly. Subject to the local telecom law, there will be no restrictions on the usage of the SEA-ME-WE 4 capacity.
The BTTB's joining this consortium now hinges on the government. The previous BNP government failed to connect the country to SEA-ME-WE 3 in the 1990s. Bureaucratic bottleneck, political indecision and a lack of vision on the part of the BTTB were also to blamed.
Since then, Bangladesh has been the only sea-accessing country in the Asia-Pacific region with no access to the high-speed submarine cable network.