BSCCL to double bandwidth capacity with support from a third submarine cable

The Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL) will double its bandwidth capacity with support from the third submarine cable in a bid to gear itself up for the growing demand.

As the company disclosed in a stock exchange filing on Monday, its shares closed 0.77% higher at Tk210 each in the downward market of the Dhaka Stock Exchange.

According to the declaration, the bandwidth capacity will go up to 13,200 Gbps from the existing 6,600 Gbps. But to make it happen, the company needs an additional investment of Tk176.83 crore.

The landing station of the third submarine cable – widely known as South East Asia–Middle East-Western Europe-6 (SEA-ME-WE-6) Consortium – will be built in Cox's Bazar, around 100km south of the Chattogram port city.

In December 2020, the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) approved the Tk692 crore project titled "Installation of Third Submarine Cable for Expansion of International Telecommunication System of Bangladesh" connecting the country to a third submarine cable and meeting the growing demand for internet bandwidth.  

Tk392 crore was set to come from the government while BSCCL will pay the remaining Tk300 crore on its own for the project scheduled for completion by 2025.

A senior officer at the company, seeking anonymity, said it is still unknown whether the remaining finance will come from the government or the company. The project time will also increase to raise the capacity.

BSCCL operates two submarine cable landing stations with a capacity of 1,900 gigabits per second. The first is SMW-4 in Cox's Bazar launched in 2005 and the second is SMW-5 in Kuakata, which started operations in 2017.

Since the beginning of 2017, the market share of BSCCL began to increase significantly, which is now about 74%.

At present, Bangladesh consumes 1,564 Gbps of bandwidth from BSCCL and 95% of it comes from the Singapore route.

That is why the company has decided to sell 25.31% of the capacity of the western section (France route) of the second submarine cable for a one-time fee of Tk30.6 crore to Saudi Telecom Company.

According to the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, the number of internet users was 12.18 crore till January this year, while mobile internet subscribers were 11.17 crore and broadband users 1.01 crore.

Meanwhile, the BSCCL posted a 21% growth in revenue and a 57% rise in net profit in the first half of fiscal 2021-22 compared to the same period a year ago.

According to its financial statement, in the July-December period, its revenue was Tk145.12 crore and the net profit was Tk112.90 crore.