Patuakhali: Bangladesh government is going to start work on connecting the country to a second submarine cable from the current month, according to State Minister for Posts and Communications Tarana Halim.

“Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is likely to inaugurate the submarine cable by March 15 and its commercial activities will also start this month,” said Tarana, while talking to reporter after she visited the second submarine cable’s Kuakata landing station at Maitbhanga in Kuakata here.

On February 21 last, Bangladesh connected to second submarine cable for commercial use with Kuakata landing station.

Informing that the work on a transmission link between the Kuakata landing station with Dhaka has been completed, the junior minister said the link was now undergoing tests.

Responding to a question on how much additional bandwidth the country would be gaining once the new submarine cable goes into commercial operation, Tarana said “We are taking an initiative to export excess bandwidth to Bhutan, Nepal, Malaysia, Myanmar and the Seven Sister-states of India.”       

Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL) managing director Monwar Hossain said Bangladesh Telecommunication Company Limited (BTCL) and Telephone Shilpa Sangstha (TSS) completed the work of the transmission link.

At the user end, the cost of using internet may be expected to go down after the new price of bandwidth with second submarine cable is fixed, hoped the BSCCL MD.

The commencement of the second submarine cable will provide an additional bandwidth of more than 1,500 Gigabyte (GB).

In 2005, Bangladesh got connected with its first submarine cable SEA-ME-WE-4 with a capacity of 200 Gbps (Gigabits per second), according to the BSCCL.