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First private submarine cable on cards

BTRC to seek proposals from stakeholders this month

Star Business Report
The telecom watchdog has decided to allow a submarine cable in the private sector, enabling the ICT and cellphone users to get cheaper services.
Bangladesh Telecommunication and Regulatory Commission (BTRC) is likely to start the process this month seeking proposals from prospective private sector stakeholders.
The ICT (information and communication technology) businessmen anticipated a significant reduction in internet charges, as the monopoly of state-owned BTTB, the sole owner of the country's single submarine cable, will go after the private sector steps in.
BTRC Chairman Manzurul Alam said, “BTRC will invite proposals from the private sector by this month and there will be an open auction on completion of the scrutiny of all such proposals.”
The whole process of establishing a private sector submarine cable will complete by the year-end, he said.
The government would not bar any intending private company from laying a submarine cable to conhect the country with another underseacable, he said.
The need for an alternative
submarine cable has been a much-talked-about issue among the stakeholders of ICT and mobile telephone sectors just after Bangladesh's joining the information super highway in May 2006.
Such a need has become stronger on disconnection of the existing on-land optical fibre line for at least 2 dozen times since its inception. This disconnection has resulted in a severe disruption in telecommunication and internet connections which led to a business loss of crores of taka.
The present landing station is connected to Dhaka through a 433-km optical fibre line.
BTRC sources said some officials of the commission already visited the Philippines to examine the viability of a private sector submarine cable.
The second cable will ensure redundancy of trunk cable, availability of restoration facilities for the existing cable SEA-ME-WE-4(SMW-4).
“Besides this, BTTB's monopoly over the present cable will be reduced and thereby the internet charges might be reduced to a tolerable level as it will have to compete with the new one,” an official of BTRC said.
The official said some companies including India's BSNL , Reliance
Communications, talked to the BTRC to provide an alternative submarine cable services to Bangladesh.
Talking to The Daily Star, Rafiqul Islam Rowly, president of the Bangladesh Association for Software and Information Services (BASIS), said the private sector submarine cable will not only bring a back up for the existing one but also help get internet connection at a competitive price.
The BTTB has recently reduced internet tariff charges by 20 percent to 40 percent in different slabs in a bid to accelerate the growth of the country's ICT sector.
But the ICT stakeholders are not happy. They said it should be reduced as like as India.
An internet subscriber has to pay Tk 20,000 a month for above 2 mbps (mega bits per second) dedicated internet connection to BTTB. But in India, a subscriber pays hardly Tk 1,800 (in Bangladesh currency) for the same connection.
Bangladesh connected itself to the International Information Super Highway last year by joining an international consortium of 16 telecom operators, which installed the undersea cable at acostof$35.1 million.