By The Daily Star
September 20, 2017
The country's first international submarine cable (SEA-ME-WE-4) connection will remain shut for three days from October 6 for the first time of the cable's 12-year history due to maintenance works under the Bay of Bengal, said a top official of the company.
If the second cable, which was launched last week, fails to provide adequate bandwidth, it may lead to disruption in internet services.
Internet users may feel some sort of disruption due to the maintenance work, said Monwar Hossain, managing director of Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited, adding that not everyone will get slower data speed.
The BSCCL has started using the second submarine cable named SEA-ME-WE-5 commercially from this month.
The capacity of the cable is about 1,500 Gigabits per second but the state-owned company can use only 200 Gbps of it at present.
“We are trying to shift all our connectivity with the second cable.”
Currently, BSCCL is supplying about 250 Gbps bandwidth and there will be a shortage of about 50 Gbps bandwidth during the maintenance period.
“We are trying to purchase another 50 Gbps from some international companies for one month to tackle the situation,” Hossain added.
Bangladesh uses about 450 Gbps bandwidth, meaning about 200 Gbps is imported from India.