THE Internet service providers (ISPs) give out enticing advertisements that they provide fast-speed access to the Internet through the submarine cable connection. In reality, the clients of the ISPs find no difference really after the submarine cable connection. They say that they continue to suffer slow Internet service as they used to when they relied on dial up connections.
Nor are the users finding any relief in the area of price. ISPs are charging them more on the plea of giving service through submarine cable connection notwithstanding that the service is hardly improved.
Observers of the situation say that the ISPs buy very limited bandwidth from the Bangladesh Telephone and Telegraph Board (BTTB) but then provide connections to too many users than what their purchased bandwidth can support. They, thus, make maximum profits from both buying bandwidth from the BTTB at a cheap price and then going after a large number of customers. The only losers from the operation are the helpless clients who suffer from slow Internet service as a consequence of too many customers under an ISP wanting to surf the Internet.
Internet use could rapidly increase if the ISPs could provide efficient service. But they are hardly motivated to do so from the present assured high profits from their limited operations. But this is not helping the cause of much spreading the use of the Internet. In some cases, the ISPs have applied to the BTTB for more bandwidth to address customers' complaints and to increase the number of customers. But the officials of the BTTB have been sitting on such applications in their characteristic bureaucratic manner.
There are also probably technical problems involved in providing greater bandwidths to the ISPs because the BTTB has not set up additional infrastructures to be able to meet such requests. Presently, the BTTB has a massive bandwidth of around 10 gigabytes per second. But it sold or utilised bandwidth of around 622 megabytes per second ( one gigabyte equals one thousand megabytes). This shows how massively underused is the capacity of the submarine cable connection.
Policies and actions are badly needed for drastic changes in this state of affairs. BTTB must acquire enabling infrastructures to be able to provide additional bandwidth to users. It should make the use more flexible so that users other than ISPs can also buy bandwidth directly from the BTTB. Rules should be introduced to oblige the ISPs to pass on the benefits of cheap bandwidth price to their customers.
Sajib Chowdhury
Nayapaltan
Dhaka
Little benefit from submarine cable connection
FE Team | Published: August 11, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00
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