Plans to use Bangladesh as transit point to supply bandwidth to northeast India

way2barak, Feb 14: The telecom regulator of Bangladesh has sought consent from their government after Summit Communications Ltd applied to use Bangladesh as a transit point to supply bandwidth to the northeastern states of India.

In March last year, the country’s largest fibre optic network infrastructure company requested permission from the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC).

The commission is now seeking approval from the telecom ministry since existing laws don’t permit transit of telecommunication services from Bangladesh to operators outside the country.

Summit Communications, an international terrestrial cable (ITC) operator, plans to supply bandwidth from Singapore via the Akhaura border to the northeastern region of India through Bharti Airtel.

The main purpose of the service is to connect Agartala through Akhaura to Bangladesh’s submarine cable landing stations in Cox’s Bazar and Kuakata to reach Singapore. The service is known as an international private leased circuit which will use Bangladeshi soil as a transit route.

It will enable faster internet services in the northeastern states of Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Mizoram, Manipur, Meghalaya, and Nagaland.

Summit Communications says the states are connected to Singapore through submarine cables via Chennai using India’s domestic fibre optic network.

Md Arif Al Islam, managing director of Summit Communications, said this would help export bandwidth to India.

“It will be a good export opportunity if we could sell some bandwidth in the northeastern Indian states. And this export could be done legally with the terrestrial cable licence.”

He could not say immediately how much bandwidth could be exported.