Bandwidth export to Italy awaits final nod

A final proposal has been sent to the prime minister for the approval to export 10 gigabits per second of internet bandwidth of Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Ltd (BSCCL) to an Italian company.

The state-owned company is facilitating the export after an offer from Telecom Italia Sparkels.

The BSCCL will initially finalise the deal for a year at a rate of $14,000 a month, with a provision to extend the agreement for a few more years, said Monowar Hossain, managing director of the company.

"The board has given us a green light to earn as much possible from export of the unused bandwidth."

As Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is also in-charge of the telecom ministry, she needs to give her consent to the deal, he said.

At present, the BSCCL is using only 32 Gbps of internet bandwidth out of its cable's total capacity of 200 Gbps.

The company has also been in discussion for three years now to export another 10 Gbps of bandwidth to India. A deal in this regard may be signed on June 6, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Dhaka.

The BSCCL got approval from the cabinet about this deal with the Indian company, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. Bangladesh will earn $100,000 a month and the payment will be received in advance for every quarter, Hossain said.

In February, the Italian company offered the BSCCL to sell out its four million MIU*km (minimum investment unit), around 90 Gbps, at a price of Tk 16 crore for the rest of the cable's lifetime.

After the proposal, the BSCCL faced huge criticism from the industry and then revised their offer.

A submarine cable usually lasts 20-25 years, and this cable has been in operations since 2006; so, the Italian company may be looking to use the cable for 11 to 16 more years.