Internet to remain slow for three days

Internet speed in Bangladesh may remain slow for three days starting from October 24 to 26 due to renovation work on the first submarine cable.

State Minister for Posts and Telecommunications Tarana Halim said this at an event at the secretariat on Sunday.

However, the problem will be limited as Bangladesh will use bandwidth from its second submarine cable and six international terrestrial cable connections, she said.

Bangladesh has got the connection with the South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 4 (SEA-ME-WE 4) in 2005, which provides 250 gigabits per second of bandwidth.

Bangladesh is also connected to six terrestrial cables.

Bangladesh’s second submarine cable landing station was inaugurated in Patuakhali on September 10, 2017.

A top Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL) official told a local media that the renovation works will involve the replacement of repeaters and could slow internet.

This is the first time renovation work on the cable, the official added.

The demand for internet in Bangladesh is above 400Gbps.  Thus far BSSL provides 120Gbps and the remaining 280Gbps is imported from India, reports bdnews24.com.

According to global media report, SEA-ME-WE 4 is an optical fibre submarine communications cable system that carries telecommunications between Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Egypt, Italy, Tunisia, Algeria and France.