PM to inaugurate second submarine cable Sunday

The government will commercially inaugurate the second submarine cable, which has a capacity of 1500 Gigabits per second (Gbps) bandwidth, on Sunday.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will inaugurate the cable service and landing station though a video conference from her official residence, said Monwar Hossain, managing director of Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL).

"It will be a historic moment for the digitisation process of the country," said Hossain.

The cable will help meet the future demand of Bangladesh.

The country got connected with the submarine cable system called South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 5 (SEA-ME-WE 5) at the landing station in Kuakata on February 21, but the BSCCL cannot start its service as the authority's failure to establish an uninterrupted inland link.

Even the authorities fixed date for inauguration of the cable service, but failed to start it. It declared the cable's inauguration in a celebration held in Honolulu, Hawaii on January this year and all except Bangladesh have started using it commercially.

In last couple of months BSCCL is caring some bandwidth and after its launch, importing bandwidth from India will be automatically stopped, Hossain added.

Initially, the longevity of the cable was fixed at 20 years, which may be increased to 25 years by optimum maintenance.

Bangladesh now uses 180 Gbps bandwidth from its first submarine cable system, SEA-ME-WE-4, set up in 2006. Another 260 Gbps is imported from India.

Internet business entities say they are eagerly waiting to use the second submarine cable, as it will lead to cut in bandwidth import that costs millions of dollars every month.