Bandwidth exports to Bhutan from May

Bangladesh would start exporting bandwidth to Bhutan from the beginning of May. The landlocked Himalayan kingdom would initially take 2.5 Gbps. Monowar Hossain, managing director of the state-owned Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL), the organisation that has been assigned to handle the bandwidth, told The Independent that they would establish a linkage with Bhutan using the network of the Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (PGCIL) through the Akhaura-Tripura frontier.
He said: “For 2.5 Gbps, we would charge USD 15 per megabit (MB) of bandwidth. The price will be reduced to USD 9 if they (Bhutan) take 10 Gbps.”
Currently, Bhutan imports 65 gigabits of bandwidth from India. “They are now connected with fourth generation (4G) technology, which is why Bhutanese people consume higher bandwidth per head than us,” Hossain added.
The BSCCL MD said the bandwidth exports could have been launched from March itself, but as PGCIL did not have an international terrestrial cable (ITC) licence in India, the bandwidth exports could not be started.
“That licence issue has now been resolved. We are ready to export the bandwidth now, but some formalities are still left. The exports will start from the beginning of next month,” he
said. During the recent visit of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to Bhutan, the issue of bandwidth exports was discussed. The landlocked kingdom has taken this move to establish a third international link to the internet to ensure redundancy for internet connectivity. It currently has only two links to the internet, one through Gelephu and the other through Phuentsholing. However, both converge in the Indian city of Siliguri, which means Bhutan lacks true redundancy or back-up connectivity to the internet.
Bhutan started discussions in August and an expert team visited Bangladesh to check out the landing station of BSCCL’s first submarine cable, South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 4 or SEA-ME-WE 4, in the last week of September 2016.
BSCCL had primarily selected five alternatives routes initially to transmit bandwidth. The routes were through Akhaura-Tripura, Sylhet-Tamabil-Shillong-Guwahati, Kurigram-Bhurungamari and two links in ‎Panchagarh-Banglabandha. Initially, BSCCL had thought of the Sylhet-Tamabil-Shillong-Guwahati route as that would have opened up the scope of exporting bandwidth to Shillong and Guwahati as well. But later it was changed as India’s north-eastern states failed to import the full load of 10 gigabit per second (Gbps) bandwidth from Bangladesh under a deal due to their infrastructural constraints.
Bangladesh has now over 200 Gbps bandwidth and, after meeting the domestic demand, it has the capacity to export bandwidth up to 50 Gbps. Bangladesh currently consumes only 33 per cent of the total bandwidth and the total demand for bandwidth may reach 210 Gbps by 2021.

Bandwidth exports to Bhutan from May

Bangladesh would start exporting bandwidth to Bhutan from the beginning of May. The landlocked Himalayan kingdom would initially take 2.5 Gbps. Monowar Hossain, managing director of the state-owned Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL), the organisation that has been assigned to handle the bandwidth, told The Independent that they would establish a linkage with Bhutan using the network of the Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (PGCIL) through the Akhaura-Tripura frontier. He said: For 2.5 Gbps, we would charge USD 15 per megabit (MB) of bandwidth. The price will be reduced to USD 9 if they (Bhutan) take 10 Gbps. Currently, Bhutan imports 65 gigabits of bandwidth from India. They are now connected with fourth generation (4G) technology, which is why Bhutanese people consume higher bandwidth per head than us, Hossain added. The BSCCL MD said the bandwidth exports could have been launched from March itself, but as PGCIL did not have an international terrestrial cable (ITC) licence in India, the bandwidth exports could not be started. That licence issue has now been resolved. We are ready to export the bandwidth now, but some formalities are still left. The exports will start from the beginning of next month, he said. During the recent visit of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to Bhutan, the issue of bandwidth exports was discussed. The landlocked kingdom has taken this move to establish a third international link to the internet to ensure redundancy for internet connectivity. It currently has only two links to the internet, one through Gelephu and the other through Phuentsholing. However, both converge in the Indian city of Siliguri, which means Bhutan lacks true redundancy or back-up connectivity to the internet. Bhutan started discussions in August and an expert team visited Bangladesh to check out the landing station of BSCCLs first submarine cable, South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 4 or SEA-ME-WE 4, in the last week of September 2016. BSCCL had primarily selected five alternatives routes initially to transmit bandwidth. The routes were through Akhaura-Tripura, Sylhet-Tamabil-Shillong-Guwahati, Kurigram-Bhurungamari and two links in Panchagarh-Banglabandha. Initially, BSCCL had thought of the Sylhet-Tamabil-Shillong-Guwahati route as that would have opened up the scope of exporting bandwidth to Shillong and Guwahati as well. But later it was changed as Indias north-eastern states failed to import the full load of 10 gigabit per second (Gbps) bandwidth from Bangladesh under a deal due to their infrastructural constraints. Bangladesh has now over 200 Gbps bandwidth and, after meeting the domestic demand, it has the capacity to export bandwidth up to 50 Gbps. Bangladesh currently consumes only 33 per cent of the total bandwidth and the total demand for bandwidth may reach 210 Gbps by 2021.