The commissioning of the new submarine cable is a landmark in the country’s telecommunications and information communication technology sectors as it will tremendously enhance the performance and capacity in this field.
She said it was essential for Bangladesh to be connected with the global information superhighway through the submarine cable to ensure faster growth of the information technology.
''Overcoming various difficulties we have reached our target through various initiatives,'' the Prime Minister said.
She said to exploit the full benefit of the submarine cable, work is now going on to extend the telecommunication network across the country through the high capacity optical fibre and microwave links.
This will improve the telecommunication system.
Bangladesh earlier signed an agreement with 12 other countries under a consortium in 2004 to implement the mega-project at a cost of Tk 628 crore for installing the submarine cable underneath the seabed.
The South East Asia-Middle East-West Europe-4 project connects the country with undersea optical fibre cable passing from Singapore through Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and a number of Middle-Eastern countries to finally land in France.
Now the county will have a 10-gigabyte data-transfer capacity per second, which is 68 times higher than the current speed.
Prime Minister Zia said this submarine cable will facilitate high-speed data and voice transfer and also increase the number of international communication circuits which will ultimately lead to an enhancement of revenue for the government.
''The country will also have a scope to earn huge foreign exchange through leasing out the unutilised capacity of the submarine cable,'' she noted.
The project will create an opportunity to introduce broad band data transfer and call centre services at a significantly cheap rate.
Ms Zia said that software could be made at low cost for export while e-governance, e-commerce and tele-medicine services could be easily introduced at cheaper costs.
Through video conferencing, reputed international doctors will have the scope to help Bangladeshi doctors diagnose ailments and conduct treatment or operations, she said.
The Bangladesh Prime Minister said the present government has already taken a massive initiative to promote software industry and make telecommunication and information technology available and easier for all.
Quelle/Source: Deepika, 21.05.2006
