Dhaka: With the aim of capturing the market of Bhutan and eight eastern states of India, Bangladesh is going to negotiate with them to export the unused bandwidth.

To this end, a team of Bangladesh led by state minister for posts and telecommunications Tarana Halim would fly to India and Bhutan by the end of this week to discuss with the authorities of the countries.

Indian state of Tripura has been importing 10 gbps bandwidth from Bangladesh since March this year, but the volume is small against their demand.

Talking to BSS, Monwar Hossain, Managing Director of Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL), said that the state minister has schedule to meet with Indian central Telecommunication and IT minister, Tripura’s chief minister and officials of Indian state-owned telecommunications company Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BNSL).

‘Actually, we would tell them (India) that if you want bandwidth for other states then we would reserve it . . . at the last call minute, it is hard to manage for us,’ he said.

Referring to the agreement with BSNL for bandwidth supply to Tripura, the BSCCL managing director said: ‘we’ve incorporated an option to expand the volume up to 40 gbps as per their requirement.’

Other eastern states — Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, Tripura, Mizoram and Arunachal — have also requirement of bandwidth, he added.

Besides, Bhutan would also be a potential market for our bandwidth, said Hossain.

On March 23 this year, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi launched bandwidth export to Tripura through Akhaura-Agartala frontier through video conference.

During Indian Prime Minister Norendra Modi’s visit to Bangladesh, the state-owned BSCCL struck a deal with Indian state-owned BSNL for exporting bandwidth.

According to the agreement, BSNL is now receiving 10 gbps bandwidth for Tripura in return for annual payment of Taka 9.6 crore.

The BSCCL, which manages the country’s lone submarine cable is having over 200 gbps bandwidth. It has the capacity to export bandwidth up to 50 gbps after meeting the domestic demand. Now, Bangladesh is consuming only 33 per cent of the total bandwidth. The country’s demand for bandwidth may reach 210 gbps by 2021.

Besides, Bangladesh will be connected with second undersea cable by January next year to get another 1300 gbps bandwidth.

Since the lifetime of Bangladesh’s submarine cable will end within the next 12 years, there is no other alternative to exporting bandwidth.