Inauguration of 2nd submarine cable landing station in Bangladesh

Bangladesh has reached a new height in Internet communication and services as the government commercially inaugurated the second submarine cable with 1500-gigabit per second (Gbps) bandwidth capacity. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina formally inaugurated the landing station at Kuakata and SMW-5 consortium submarine cable system through a videoconference from her Ganobhaban official residence on Sunday, September 10, 2017.

Bangladesh now uses 180 Gbps bandwidth from its first submarine cable system, EA-MEWE-4, set up in 2006. Another 260 Gbps is imported from India. Internet business entities will be able to enjoy greater benefits as there will be price cut in bandwidth import with the use of the second submarine cable. The SMW-5 comprises of a core cable section that will pass through Singapore, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Italy and France. Besides, there are several branch cable sections connecting Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, the UAE, Pakistan, Yemen, Oman and Turkey. The total length of the cable, including core and branch sections is approximately 20,000 km. The Bangladesh branch section involves deployment of approximately 1900 km submarine cable from the main core cable section to the cable landing station at Kuakata. 

The inland transmission network with 1500 gbps capacity (currently connected 200 gbps) is setup by state owned telecom operator Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Ltd (BTCL) and implemented by Telephone Shilpa Shanstha Limited (TSS). The countrywide main backbone network is currently developed with total 10 drop points and countrywide distribution will be through existing access network. The main link is based on BTCL’s underground fiber and the protection link is based of OPGW fiber from Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB).

The installed transmission equipment was assembled at Telephone Shilpa Shanstha Limited (TSS) with technical assistance from Tejas Networks Limited of India one of the front ranking company in the relevant field. Complete project management and deployment was done by Systems & Services Limited. Systems & Services Limited is also responsible for after-sales support of the network.