 At last Bangladesh is going to be connected the much needed Submarine cable connectivity in April 2006. Bangladesh has joined SEA-ME-WE-4 Consortium on the recommendation of ICT Task Force, Government of Bangladesh. The consortium includes 14 countries and 16 parties. Submarine cable covers 20,000 Km from Singapore to France.
Countries, Parties and their landing stations are as follows:
| Sl. # |
14 Countries |
16 Parties |
Landing Stations |
| 1 |
Singapore |
Singapore |
Tuas |
| 2 |
Malaysia |
Malaysia |
Melaka |
| 3 |
Thailand |
Thailand |
Satun |
| 4 |
Bangladesh |
Bangladesh |
Cox's Bazar |
| 5 |
India |
(VSNL) & (Bharati) |
Mumbai & Chennai |
| 6 |
Sri Lanka |
Colombo |
Colombo |
| 7 |
UAE |
Fujairah |
Fujairah |
| 8 |
Pakistan |
Karachi |
Karachi |
| 9 |
Saudi Arabia |
Jeddah |
Jeddah |
| 10 |
Egypt |
Alexandria |
Alexandria |
| 11 |
Italy |
Palermo |
Palermo |
| 12 |
Tunisia |
Bizerte |
Bizerte |
| 13 |
Algeria |
Annaba |
Annaba |
| 14 |
France |
(French Telecom) & (MCIF) |
Marseilles |
Bangladesh Telegraph & Telephone Board (BTTB) under Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, Government of Bangladesh is the member of SEA-ME-WE-4 Consortium. To link the country with submarine cable network BTTB undertook a project costing Tk.6, 280 million and out of which Tk.4, 770 million in foreign currency. It is also estimated that annual maintenance and operation cost would be around Tk.90 million per annum. Primarily Bangladesh will get capacity of 10Gbps that will be enhanced by an additional eight STM-1 for first expansion in future at no cost.
The landing station of submarine cable is at Cox’s Bazar and the main load center is Dhaka. In order to keep connect with rest of the country construction is being underway with high capacity optical fiber link to Dhaka. Dhaka is already connected with all the districts either with optical fiber or of Microwave links. Submarine cable is now functioning on test basis and before become fully operation the major task of BTTB is to workout a realistic plan for proper utilization of the bandwidth and provide the service on demand through out the country at an affordable price together with development of other related infrastructure for uninterrupted service. It is an established fact that ICT is playing a decisive role to strengthen the development activity in the present world and submarine cable has no alternative for rapid development of ICT. Govt. has already declared ICT as the thrust sector and it is a major key-driving element for socio-economic development. To drive out the optimum benefit from ICT, it is essential to create an independent state-owned entity to operate the Submarine Cable link service instead of giving to BTTB who itself is an operator. It must have equitable access to all i.e. public or private sectors. There must not be any discrimination in the matter. Another crucial point is government should discuss with ISP’s, civil society and related users to set up a reasonable price structure that eventually help building country wide ICT network to keep pace of development activity.
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