Government has decided to sell bandwidth of submarine cable

The Dhaka Times Desk Submarine cables have been installed in Bangladesh for a long time. But very little of it is being used in Bangladesh. And so the government of Bangladesh has decided to sell bandwidth from the unused portion of the submarine cable.

The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications estimates that approximately Tk 60 crore will come from the sale of bandwidth.

Post and Telecommunication Secretary Abu Bakar Siddique informed this information. He said, this decision has been taken keeping in hand the amount of bandwidth the country will need until the year 2021.

C-ME-U-4, the only submarine cable in Bangladesh, has a maximum bandwidth of 200 gigabytes. Only 40 to 45 GB of it is being used. The government will sell bandwidth from the rest. Initially the plan was to rent unused bandwidth. But the principle decision of sale was taken in the meeting. It is known that the reason is that the income will be three times more than the income from renting. This submarine cable will expire in 2025.

The connection of six alternative submarine cables (International Terrestrial Cables) has reduced C-ME-U-4's bandwidth usage. The process of laying another submarine cable (CMW-5) will be completed in 2016. This will increase the bandwidth. An additional 1,400 gigabytes of bandwidth will be available from this by 2021. Then the usage of 160 gigabyte bandwidth will increase in the country.

According to BCCL managing director Manowar Hossain, the process of bandwidth export will start from next week. Singapore, Malaysia, Italy, India, Myanmar and Nepal have already offered to buy bandwidth from Bangladesh.