Bangladesh Govt Decides for 3rd Submarine Cable

By The Daily Star
January 16, 2019

The government in principle decided to connect Bangladesh with the third submarine cable with a view to meet up rapidly growing data consumption in the country, Telecom and ICT Minister Mustafa Jabbar said today.

More and more new technological advancement is hitting the market and that also enhance the data consumption of the country, Jabbar said while addressing at the trail run of “Voice over Long Term Evolution” service by the second largest mobile phone operator Robi at its office in the city.

“Currently country’s total bandwidth consumption is about 950 Gbps which was about 550 Gbps only one year ago and the growth rate is flying,” Jabbar said replying a query of the journalists.

Jabbar said a new consortium has started for moving to lay another undersea cable (SEA-ME-WE-6) within a short time from Singapore and Bangladesh.

Bangladesh got connected with the first submarine cable (SEA-ME-WE-4) in 2006 and with the second submarine cable in 2017.

Considering the rapid growth in data consumption by the country, the existing capacity of the two submarine cables along with other service providers would be exhausted within 2020 or before that, the telecom minister said.

“It would not be possible for us to provide required bandwidth unless alternative source of internet is created,” he said.