Second Submarine Cable Coming by 2014 In Bangladesh

Second Submarine Cable Coming by 2014 In Bangladesh

Bangladesh will be connected to its second submarine cable in 2014.



The state-owned Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited is preparing to complete all related work within Dec 2014, the company's director Manwar Hossain told bdnews24.com on Sunday.

The telecom ministry recently issued instructions to BSCCL on how it should collect the funds for this project.

The company is in charge of the only submarine cable connecting Bangladesh to the world, a cable consortium of 16 countries, the South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe-4 or SEA-ME-WE 4.

In 2014, Bangladesh will be connected to SEA-ME-WE 5.

Manwar Hossain said telecommunications and internet connectivity gets hampered if the SEA-ME-WE 4 suffers any damage.

"Once SEA-ME-WE 5 is connected, there will be no such trouble," he said.

On Oct 14 in Singapore last year, BSCCL had held a meeting with possible partners to lay the SEA-ME-WE 5, officials said.

They said primarily six companies had signed MoUs to participate in the consortium. The new cable would use the latest 100G technology.

They said there was a possibility that the cable would extend to Myanmar as well, whereby Bangladesh would have a smaller share of maintenance cost.

The telecom ministry has laid down three conditions for raising funds for the project, Manwar said.

"The government will not fund the project nor provide any bank guarantees, no loans can be taken from internal sources," he said.

"The project will cost us about Tk 4.5 billion. BSCCL can provide Tk 2.5 billion from its own fund, and the rest can be raised from the share market," he added.

Besides, funds can also be acquired from public-private partnership and low-interest loans from Islamic Development Bank or International Monetary Fund.

3 IP telephony licenses for local firms by Oct

The country's telecom regulator yesterday (Sunday) said it decided to issue IP (internet protocol) telephony licences to three local internet service providers by October.
In a meeting with Internet Service Provider Association of Bangladesh (ISPAB), the telecom watchdog also said it already formulated a draft policy to introduce the internet-based telephony that uses the internet protocol's packet-switched connections to exchange voice.
However, the members of ISPAB urged the regulator to introduce IP telephony licences to all ISP licensees within a month.
The decision of the Bangladesh Telecommuni-cations and Regulatory Commission (BTRC) is basically a follow-up of ISPAB's last month reaction. ISPAB had blamed the regulator for delaying the licence issuance process.
"We will introduce IP telephony by October this year," said a BTRC official who attended the meeting and claimed that issuance of IP telephony licences has remained in the BTRC's roadmap of introducing new communication technology in the coming months.
Meanwhile, as per the International Long Distance Telecommunication Services (ILDTS) Policy 2007, the telecom regulator has to issue IP telephony licences to the country's internet service providers.
IP telephony is a general term for the technologies that use the internet protocol's packet-switched connections to exchange voice, fax and other forms of information that have traditionally been carried over the dedicated circuit-switched connections of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). Using the internet, the voice calls travel as packets of data on shared lines, avoiding the tolls of the PSTN.
"The introduction of IP telephony will provide cost effective voice facilities along with other unique features that are comparatively expensive to provide by mobile or landline operators," said M A Salam, president of ISPAB.
Compared to other countries, Bangladesh is a late entrant to the world of IP telephony. Worldwide traditional phone technologies are being replaced with IP-based operations.
Salam said in the subcontinent, except Pakistan all other nations are enjoying IP telephony facilities. "The main advantage of IP phone is that it offers low-cost phone service," he said.
The ISPAB president explained that in traditional phone systems, when a number is dialed, a dedicated circuit is established between the two sides. This circuit remains occupied throughout the conversation. It is wastage of resources because nobody else can share the link. As a result, long distance calls are more expensive. But IP telephony eliminates this problem as it uses shared links to route packets to the destination.
Through the IP telephony services, anybody can make international calls. But ISPs need to be connected with international gateways for transferring calls. "We can enjoy IP phone service from any place, where internet access is available", the ISPAB chief said.
According to BTRC, so far a total of 200 ISP licences have been issued, whereas only 70 operators are providing services. Around a million people of the country have internet access.