BSCCL may get 2nd submarine cable installation work

Md Jamal Uddin Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL) is likely to get the approval for installation of second submarine cable to connect the country with the information super highway. The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications will give the final approval within a day or two as all necessary works have already been completed, said a ministry official Monday. The official said the government is giving due importance to the issue to boost the country`s telecommunication sector. Managing Director of BSCCL Monwar Hossain hoped that his company would get approval for building the second submarine cable as his company has vast experience in this field. He said about Tk 4.5 billion is required to install the second submarine cable and his company had already made a plan to manage the amount. Bulk amount of the cost will be drawn from the capital market, he added and said the company would float its share in the share market by next month. Currently, the company is representing the SEA-ME-WE-4 (South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe-4) that connects 13 countries. Mr Monwar told the FE that the second submarine cable (SEA-ME-WE-5) would be connected with 16 countries and the work of the cable will end by 2014. He said BSCCL had joined a meeting with Singapore based service provider company SingTel about SEA-ME-WE-5 where all participant companies took a decision to use latest 100 Gigabyte technology in the cable that will be 30,000 KM long. With the installation of second submarine cable, business volume of different IT firms will increase dramatically and the growth of call centers, software firms and outsourcing will be remarkable, he added. Even costing will come down at end level also, he noted. Mr Hossain said connectivity line of first submarine cable at Cox`s Bazar was 1260 KM, but the second one will need only 300 KM as Myanmar has agreed to join the consortium. The BSCCL boss said due to fault in submarine cable, currently the country faces frequent disruption of web connectivity. That is why second submarine cable is inevitable for uninterrupted communication, he added. SEA-ME-WE-4 submarine cable system spans nearly 20,000km, linking 14 countries from France to Singapore through Italy, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Thailand, and Malaysia. The second submarine cable will cover Japan via Hong Kong, the BSCCL MD mentioned. Earlier, Mir Telecom applied to the telecom regulatory for the second submarine cable but Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission did not accept its proposal.