India's northeastern states are unable to import the full load of 10-gigabit per-second (Gbps) bandwidth from Bangladesh under a deal due to their infrastructural constraints.
They are taking only 3GBPS now, to start with, officials said.
In a swap of internet frequency called bandwidth for power, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, formally inaugurated Bangladesh's 10-Gbp bandwidth export to India in exchange for electricity through videoconferencing last Wednesday.
According to Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL), India does not have the capacity to import and use the 10 Gbps for now as per the deal.
In a prelude to the formal opening, Bangladesh, on February 8, unofficially began bandwidth export to India through the Akhaura-Agartala border.
The state-owned company had signed a deal with the Indian state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) on June 6 last year for exporting bandwidth during the Indian prime minister's visit to Bangladesh.
According to the agreement, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) decided to import 10 Gbps of bandwidth for Tripura state from September last year, but the export timing had been fixed for August. Later, both parties missed the deadline.
According to the agreement, the volume of bandwidth will be shared with other northeastern states of India.
The submarine cable company will get the payments at the beginning of each quarter while Bangladesh will earn Tk 96 million a year by exporting bandwidth to India. BSCCL is exporting bandwidth at $10 per Mbp.
India can increase the volume of bandwidth up to 40Gbps gradually, as per agreement.
The BSCCL has the capacity to export up to 50 Gbps of bandwidth while Bangladesh has a bandwidth capacity of 200 Gbps, of which only 33 per cent is used owing to many constraints, including high price, infrastructural deficit.
"Though India is importing 3 Gbps now, they have not yet built network to use the bandwidth. They said the full network setup will take more six months at least,"
BSCCL Managing Director Monwar Hossain told The Financial Express.
He said the bandwidth export was supposed to begin last year. But due to their infrastructural deficit BSCCL could not begin it.
The company in knowledge economy of Bangladesh has laid optical-fibre cable for a 30-km distance from Brahmanbaria to Akhaura, which adjoins Agartala, while BSNL has set up international long-distance gateway at Agartala along with associated equipment.
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