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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.

“If the three firms want to connect with Singapore, the route will be the same. So, it will be a waste of money if you deploy three cables.”

“Besides, those payments have to be made in US dollars and it is almost impossible to do so under the current circumstance.”

Owing to the Russia-Ukraine war, Bangladesh has been going through a foreign exchange crisis for the past one year as higher import bills have lowered the country’s international currency reserves by about 30 per cent during the period, making it difficult for companies to open letters of credit for non-essential and luxury items.

The dollar has strengthened by about 29 per cent against the taka in the past one year.

Each of the three companies will be able to bring about 18,000 Gbps bandwidth through the cable, enough to meet the rising demand for bandwidth in the country.

In addition, the cost of the joint initiative would be reduced to Tk 1,500 crore, Hakim added.

In Bangladesh, bandwidth consumption witnessed a remarkable rise during the coronavirus pandemic as people turned to internet to work, study and find entertainment at home.

Bandwidth usage surged to over 4,800 Gbps in May from 1,000 Gbps before the health crisis erupted, according to the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC).

BSCCL supplies 2,300 Gbps while the rest comes from India through seven international terrestrial cable service providers.

Bangladesh is a member of the South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 4 (SEA-ME-WE 4) consortium, the first undersea cable with which Bangladesh was connected in 2006. It supplies about 800 Gbps bandwidth.

The state-run entity supplies 1,500 Gbps through the SEA-ME-WE 5, for which the connection was established in 2017.

The company is set to receive 13,200 Gbps from the third undersea cable, SEA-ME-WE 6, by 2025.

Also, BSCCL is going to spend $3.2 million to raise the capacity of its first undersea cable by more than four times to 4,600 Gbps.

According to the BTRC’s guideline, submarine cable firms must roll out cables within 48 months of obtaining licences.

CdNet Communications CEO Rahman said the firms would connect the country with a private submarine cable before the rollout deadline.