MAHMUDUL HASAN

Three private submarine cables have backtracked from their initial decisions to supply bandwidth separately through undersea cables and have now agreed to collaborate on one connection amid the US dollar shortage.

Top officials of the three licensees -- Summit Communications, CdNet Communications and Metacore Subcom Ltd -- said their collaboration would help the country save foreign currencies and cut their investment costs.

In September last year, the three obtained licences to establish, maintain and operate submarine cables in a development that broke the state monopoly in the wholesale bandwidth business.

Currently, Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL) is the only company that connects Bangladesh with the global bandwidth network through undersea cables.

As per their previous plans, the three firms were supposed to invest around Tk 2,000 crore collectively to connect the country with three more submarine communication cables.

However, an official of one of the firms said that as US dollars have become dearer, their investment would surge to about Tk 3,000 crore if they go for establishing the connectivity separately.

“So, we have agreed in principle to join a consortium,” Md Arif Al Islam, managing director of Summit Communications, told The Daily Star.

The ongoing US dollar crunch is the main reason for the companies to opt for forming an alliance as it would lessen the burden of having to pay a substantial amount of foreign currencies as a down payment for connections.

“We are in the process of evaluating the global consortium. We haven’t decided yet,” Islam said.

Submarine cable systems generally use optical fibre cables laid undersea to carry international data traffic, creating telecommunication links between countries across the globe. As such, cable systems cost several hundred millions of dollars to establish. In most cases, the construction is funded by consortiums of telecom operators, private cable operators and private-public partnerships.

All three local companies said they are in discussion with the initiatives of three foreign firms, namely Reliance Jio Infocomm of India, NTT Ltd of Japan, and Campana of Singapore.

Mashiur Rahman, CEO of CdNet Communications, said discussions with Campana have advanced to the final stage.

According to a study by Cushman & Wakefield, Singapore ranks among the most desirable data centre location, tying with Silicon Valley for second place globally, and ranking first in Asia.

Aminul Hakim, a director of Metacore Subcom, said it is almost confirmed that they are joining an initiative and plan to enter an agreement in this regard by June.