Bangladesh's prospects of renting out bandwidth to India seem blurred, as Indian state-owned telecom company Bharat Sanchar Nigam, the prospective user of the bandwidth, now wants tele-transit through the country.

Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company had earlier signed a

memorandum of understanding with the Indian firm to rent out 10 Gbps (gigabits per second) ofband-width. Even a draft of the final contract has been prepared.

But recently Bharat Sanchar Nigam informed the Submarine Cable Company that it wants to use the country's network infrastructure to facilitate telecommunication between Kolkata and Agartala.

Bharat Sanchar Nigam also wants to include Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Ltd in the process so that the network of BTCL can be used.

Abdus Salam Khan, acting managing director and company secretary of Submarine Cable Company, said: “We are looking over the matter and a decision will be taken soon."

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The final decision will come at the board meeting of the company, he said, adding: "There should not beany loopholes. *

If Bangladesh agrees to the new proposal, its plan to sell bulk internet bandwidth to northeastern Indian states will not materialise, another official of Submarine Cable Company said.

The neighbouring country will only use Bangladesh's land to transport voice or data from one state to another, he said, asking not to be named.

He said the proposal has surprised them as Bharat Sanchar Nigam cannot suggest inclusion of any company in a contract.

BTCL provides fibre optic network to operators along with voice and data services to its customers.

“The tele-transit is a matter of high-level policymakers and the ministry alone cannot deal with it, ” the official said.

Earlier the Indian government

allowed six Bangladeshi international terrestrial cable (ITC) companies to purchase internet bandwidth from different Indian companies. The ITCs supply international data and voice services in the country.

Abu Saeed Khan, senior policy fellow of LIRNEasia, a Colombo-based ICT think tank, puts mutual open-access at the core of tele-transit, which is more than a bilateral issue.

He said all the ITC operators of Bangladesh must be allowed to directly deal with any Indian and non-Indian carrier, includingthe ones from Bhutan and Nepal.

"Thereafter the tele-transit facility through Bangladesh could be reciprocated to all the Indian carriers instead of exclusively favouring the state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam," said Khan who also advises UN ESCAP on building a panAsian cross-border optical fibre link along the Asian highway.