The government’s negligence has deprived Bangladesh of joining the second submarine cable consortium way back in 2006. As a result, the country has wasted a rare opportunity of directly accessing the transpacific link to the United States of America. Officials behind compromising the country’s competitive edge have never been investigated. The private sector has been crying foul for resilient international connectivity ever since. It remained unheard. Finally, the private sector has come forward to link the country terrestrially with India. It will offer route diversity and resilience to the international voice and data connectivity of Bangladesh via Mumbai.
It’s like a steroid for the fussy leased-circuit customers’ SLA. Converting this “disaster recovery” option into regular business, however, depends on the Indian carriers’ wholesale IP transit offerings. Asia’s wholesale IP transit prices are up to six-times expensive than Europe, said TeleGeography. Asia’s cheapest median monthly IP transit price per Mbps for Gigabit Ethernet is US$ 14.40in Singapore and $16.00 in Hong Kong. Same product, however, costs $38.00 in Mumbai. Therefore, the Indian carriers need to revisit respective price tag, especially in the backdrop of competition from Dubai.
Cost-effective technology has been driving competition to international connectivity. State-owned PTTs ruled the telecoms world during the era of HF link and satellite. First wave of competition came along the undersea optical fiber cables, aka submarine cables. Terrestrial cross-border fiber links have boosted competitiveness of the European economies. We have initiated a project to replicate the European success and demystify international connectivity in Asia. It will open the floodgate of bandwidth and data service will have equally explosive growth like voice across developing Asia. And the Asian carriers will establish PoPs across the continent and even in Europe. New entrants to the terrestrial business in Bangladesh should prepare themselves. All the best.
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