UGC to buy 70Gbps bandwidth

 State-owned Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Ltd will sell around 70Gbps of bandwidth to the University Grants Commission of Bangladesh (UGC).

From the bandwidth, the country's 70 universities -- 38 public and 32 private -- will get 1Gbps each under a research-based networking project of the UGC.

The project -- Bangladesh Research and Education Network -- will be funded by the Asian Development Bank, said Monwar Hossain, managing director of the submarine cable company.

The bandwidth will be sold at the market rate and the company will earn more than Tk 4 crore a month. The board of the company has approved the plan to sell the bandwidth; a deal is due this week, Hossain said.

Of its 200Gbps capacity, the submarine cable company sold around 70Gbps in the country and exported 10Gbps to some Indian states.

Once the UGC deal is signed, the amount sold at home and abroad will stand at around 150Gbps, Hossain said. Earlier, the company took steps to sell around 90Gbps to a foreign company. But the government dropped the plan due to low price and asked the submarine cable company to sell bandwidth inside the country.