Bangladesh to be Connected to Submarine Cable

Posted on December 5, 2005 / 23 Comments

The Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) organised a seminar on ‘Submarine Cable Connectivity: National Readiness’ in Dhaka on the 2nd of December 2005. Rohan Samarajiva, Executive Director of LIRNEasia delivered the keynote speech at the seminar (read more in The Financial Express and The Daily Star). A short article based on the keynote speech will be published in the national newspapers shortly, through LIRNEasia’s Rapid Response program, supported by IDRC of Canada.

23 Comments

samarajiva
December 6, 2005, 1:32 pm
Re the picture: The Minister, Md. Aminul Hoque is the person in the middle; BTTB, the incumbent occupies the far left (Chairman) and far right (head of network operations).

The promised article was published on Dec 6th. This is the link: http://www.thedailystar.net/2005/12/06/d512061501104.htm
chanuka
December 21, 2005, 6:02 pm
Bangladesh PM opens new digital telephone exchange at Chittagong

Prime Minister Khaleda Zia yesterday inaugurated the newly installed digital telephone exchange, which will provide connections to 83,300 subscribers, in Nandankanon in the port city.

The PM formally inaugurated the telephone exchange by talking to President Iajuddin Ahmed from the exchange. The exchange was constructed under a Tk 368 crore project launched to set up digital telephone exchanges in Chittagong, Khulna and Sylhet. The South Korean government provided $30 million for the project while the Bangladesh government is providing Tk218 crore.

She said Bangladesh has come a long way to join the information superhighway through the submarine cable. “Experimental connection has already been given,” she added.
Fisheries and Livestock Minister Abdullah Al Noman, Posts and Telecommunications Minister M Aminul Haque, Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury and South Korean Ambassador Park Seong-Ung also spoke.

The PM said the door for Bangladesh to enter the international arena would be opened soon after the setting up of ‘national backbone network’ for the information superhighway.

Giving some statistics of development works carried out by her government in the last four years, Khaleda Zia said the capacity of T&T Board was 6,85,000 lines in October 2001 which has risen to 11,19000 in the last four years. She said scope has been created for private entrepreneurs to invest in telephone services, including mobile phone. “This initiative is making a positive contribution in providing mobile phones to the people at cheaper prices,” she added. Khaleda Zia said the number of telephone was 58,000 in Chittagong when they (Four-party) came to power and the number has now become more than double with these new telephone lines. “Building the infrastructure is not the last word,” the PM said adding “It’s very urgent to ensure appropriate utilisation of those for the progress and welfare of the countrymen as well as to make those available and profitable to people. “She said all cities and district headquarters of the country have already been brought under digital telephone system and 179 upazilas have digital telephone exchanges.The prime minister said before they (Four-party) formed the government the internet facilities were only available in eight district towns and her government has expanded the internet network to 64 districts and 179 upazilas.

Underlining the importance of peace and stability to sustain development, she called for effective and active unity of the people to attain common goals.”If we remain united, those who are involved in various evil attempts to halt the country’s forward march will fail. We’ll succeeded and come out victorious, Inshallah,” she said. She thanked the South Korean government and the people for their support in setting up the digital exchange in the port city. The newly installed telephone exchange has caller identity (Caller ID) facility.
– UNB, Chittagong
Md.Rabiul Hossain
January 21, 2006, 10:56 am
submarine cable in bangladesh to send me all perpose
samarajiva
February 19, 2006, 1:53 pm
Activity continues on making good use of the submarine cable that now connects Bangaldesh to the world:
http://www.thedailystar.net/2006/02/19/d60219060158.htm
samarajiva
May 20, 2006, 3:16 pm
Bangladesh submarine link switched on, but is BTTB?

Report from Telegeography

Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Khaleda Zia will inaugurate the country’s new link to the SEA-ME-WE-4 submarine cable on 21 May, directly connecting it to 11 countries in Western Europe, Southeast Asia and the Middle East and significantly boosting voice and data bandwidth. Ershad Shafi Chowdhury, general secretary of Bangladesh’s Internet Service Providers Association said that the new link will lead to a big fall in internet charges. However, he added that incumbent fixed line operator Bangladesh Telegraph & Telep
hone Board (BTTB) has yet to upgrade the domestic cable system and other essential infrastructure, making it almost impossible for subscribers to reap the benefit immediately.
zzainudeen
May 23, 2006, 9:53 am
BTTB given unlawful control over network: Other ISPs will be discriminated against
The Daily Star, Dhaka. 23 May 2006
Abu Saeed Khan

The government violated the law by allowing the state-run telecoms monopoly to own and operate the country’s only submarine cable network. Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) built the SEA-ME-WE4 submarine cable and its associated infrastructure from the earnings of its other telecoms ventures and the law explicitly prohibits such practices of subsidisation.

read full article:

http://www.thedailystar.net/2006/05/23/d6052301107.htm
mj
July 21, 2006, 11:48 pm
well ppl r they r saying that it’s connected and it will meet the demand of the next 10 yrs. well frankly speaking i live in dhaka. and haven’t got any advantage of it. now internet is more xpensive caz home users have to buy fibre optic cable and dsl modem .. but the isp say that i would only get 6KB/s dl speed for monthly 1500tk which is total rubbish. it was just the same before this connection. nothing has changed but ppl r getting upset with this fibre optic thing. bttb is not reducing the bandwidht cost…that;s wat isps r saying.. unfortunately nobody can do anything and all the home users r suffering and losing interest in IT and internet. international ppl look at this situation where u guys take the advantage of submarine cable some ppl in our country is trying to use it only to increase their business. SHAME SHAME>>>
mj
July 21, 2006, 11:50 pm
bttb should lower the bandwidht cost… after connecting with submarine cable they have lowered the cost to 1000 USD for 1MBPS which is nothing.
ornela
August 21, 2006, 1:44 am
HI,
Its seems that, ips of local dhaka and chittagong are not interested to serve the client who pays only 1000 per monthes for home use, the faster facilities of submarine cable.

we are now in a big trouble and we cannot feel any change with our broadband and isp (not bttb) are really cheating with enduser but they are (ips) useing the service for un lawful voip..with connection of some lower class govt. employee ips are doing that kind of un wanted works…no body here with us and no one are writhing about tihs matters..

thanks
mj
September 1, 2006, 1:05 pm
i don;t really c any hope abt this matter. isps r only happy to serve corporate clients. they don;t pay any heed to the home users. and i think this situatoin will not change. one strong hand in the authority can change all the things in a week. but unfortunately they r eating up every benefit of this cable without giving any benefit to the real ppl the public. u c bttb paid for the cable and the public in bd paid bttb. so its the 1st priority should be the home users of dhaka.
samarajiva
September 4, 2006, 3:13 pm
Disputes on another undersea cable: http://www.regulateonline.org/content/view/814/32/
shahad
March 3, 2007, 12:45 pm
when all peppole in bangladesh use sub:cable speed theyer ip
speed?
Ibrahim
April 12, 2007, 10:51 am
Bangladesh should take proper correct decision for ICT and Submarine cables use in ISD Call, Call Rates and New Middle East Countries should be Add in EISD Call Rates And Many Other Uses.
Nipu
May 24, 2007, 3:38 am
When we will find Megabyte Bandwidth In Our PC………….Like the europe country…………………….and when we will leave KB…………..
jamal
May 27, 2007, 11:58 am
Please send me the news.
sohel mahmud ex student of chittagong polytechnic institute
July 25, 2007, 2:17 pm
give me some note about submarine connection . I want to know about how to take signal from submairne .
sohel rana 01816821118
July 25, 2007, 2:21 pm
Bangladesh govt. should take dicision about submarine use.
Sajib
August 12, 2007, 3:22 pm
Give me some note about bellow topic.

# Recent initiative taken by GOB to complete submarine cable connection.

# Impact of submarine cable on ISP business & telco business.
Bytes
September 2, 2007, 5:52 pm
The article is dated December 5th 2005. Today it is 2nd September 2007. We still don’t have the submarine cable for internet use. This is very sad for the people of Bangladesh who deserve better.

Bangladesh was offered free connection to a submarine cable about 10 years before. The total moron who was communications minister at the time decided not to go for free connection ‘because information would leak out of Bangladesh.’ He cost the country a lot of money and opportunity. Hopefully he is now spending his time in prison as someone’s boyfriend.

The first priority of the internet cable should be to establish IT businesses such as call centers. Not for home users. Successful IT business will pay for increased bandwith.
Abu Saeed Khan
September 5, 2007, 12:18 pm
Nobody has ever offered “FREE” submarine cable to Bangladesh. The SEA-ME-WE3 invited Bangladesh to join the consortium. But the government did not response due to its utter ignorance.

Therefore, lamenting for not having a “FREE” submarine cable is meaningless.

The 18-month old SEA-ME-WE4 cable has never been snapped under the sea as yet. Rather BTTB’s domestic optical fibre transmission link from Cox’s Bazar cable landing station to Dhaka via Chittagong has been repeatedly getting cut accidentally as well as deliberately.

BTTB’s transmission network getting snapped is attributed to its obsolete design. It has deployed SDH technology in the nationwide transmission network. But it is yet to design and deploy a “ring” that immune such outage.

Therefore, it remains unclear what “We still don’t have the submarine cable for internet use” means.

“This is very sad for the people of Bangladesh who deserve better,” is also a cheap political rhetoric.
Pablo
August 26, 2008, 4:21 pm
In the european country a simple end user use 5Mbyte ,, when we are the people of bangladesh can browse like them ? now we are connected to submarine cable …. so when we get this type of bw ?
Tamim
August 29, 2008, 9:49 pm
Recently I heard BTTB reduced the price 450$ USD for 1MBPS. But we are still in the same speed related situation as we were before. What is the main plan of BTTB for us? Many individual ISP provide high speed wires such as fibre optic cable, which is capable of 1024MBPS. But they can’t even give us normal 10MBPS speed through a CAT4 or CAT5 wire. Then what is the point of using high speed wires? This applies to submarine cable also, which is capable of high speed data communication but the provider filter the bandwidth with a tiny wire such as a human hair. A real useful treatment should take by goverment to grow a thick hair to convert it to real life wire as a normal Developed country. A good connection can make a few several tiny countries into a single Urban area.
Md. Jahangir Kamal
April 11, 2009, 6:11 pm
Submarine cable means digital Bangladesh.