2nd submarine cable launched

The government should be congratulated for inaugurating Bangladesh's second submarine cable which, if properly used, will ensure faster Internet connection speed for the consumers. The undersea cable, joins another submarine cable set up in 2005 as well as six other cables connected through India. This surely is good news for the people who hunger for seamless flow of data, thanks to the popularity of information and communications technology. As promising as that looks, there are problems that need to be taken care of before any significant benefits can be derived from the new cable.

Industry experts have expressed guarded optimism about the new cable, saying that with a capacity of up to 1,500 Gigabytes per second (Gbps) bandwidth it will not bring immediate benefits to end-users as the inland cable network set up by BTCL is not capable of supporting full use of the bandwidth. There will be no substantial addition to the country's current bandwidth use of 450 Gbps—of which 260 come from India—if the existing inland network is not improved.

Price is another area of concern for the users. The state-run BSCCL charges high bandwidth prices compared to imported bandwidth. Local Internet service providers may not be interested to buy BSCCL-provided bandwidth if it fails to come up with a competitive price tag. The fact is, the days of bandwidth monopoly are long gone; Bangladesh needs to understand the changing market reality and update its strategy to tap into the vast potential of Internet connectivity by removing the barriers and making the cables more easily accessible and less pricey.