Will India’s Seven Sisters face problems if Bangladesh does not provide ‘Internet transit’?

Last Updated on December 19, 2024 7:24 am

Bangladesh’s Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) has decided to backtrack on the second plan to provide internet through cable from Bangladesh to improve the quality of internet connectivity in India’s northeastern region. After this news was published in a section of the media in India and Bangladesh, it is being discussed in the Indian information technology community.

According to the proposed plan, the undersea cable was supposed to provide a second connection to India’s northeastern region via Tripura after reaching the Bangladeshi landing station on the surface. However, the first internet connection, which was launched in 2021, is still operational.

Indian analysts believe that even if Bangladesh does not really provide the proposed additional broadband internet connection, it will not have a significant impact on the development of the information technology sector in northeastern India.

The business community believes that India’s own internet bandwidth is still sufficient for that region. Analysts say that their own plans have been made for many years to handle the increase in bandwidth demand.

According to them, the proposed broadband connection with Bangladesh was an ‘option only’.

What was in the proposal?

According to a report in the Indian economic newspaper The Economic Times, Summit Communication and Fiber@Home – two private Bangladeshi companies – applied to the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, BTRC, after which the commission sought approval from the telecommunications ministry of that country for the project.

The bandwidth was supposed to reach from Singapore to the Akhaura border, from where Indian telecom company Bharti Airtel would take the connection to various states in northeastern India – that was the proposal.

Quoting BTRC sources, The Economic Times wrote, “If the proposal is implemented, it will have an adverse impact on Bangladesh’s chances of becoming a regional internet hub.”

If the project is implemented, it would have been possible to further spread high-speed internet to Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Mizoram, Manipur, Meghalaya and Nagaland by using Bangladesh as a ‘transit route’.

In a report in Dhaka’s ‘Daily Star’, BTRC Chairman Muhammad Emdadul Bari was quoted as saying: ‘The guidelines do not allow such a ‘transit’ arrangement.’

The same report also mentioned that the chairman of Summit Communications, one of the two private companies in Bangladesh that applied to take the cable from Singapore to Akhaura, is Muhammad Farid Khan, who is the younger brother of Awami League presidium member Farooq Khan.

Will Northeast India be in trouble?

The Indian government has taken various projects in the last few years to develop the IT industry in the northeastern states of India.

Just as software parks have been built in every state, large IT companies are also building their own facilities in Assam.

Notable among these is the proposal of the Tata group to build a semiconductor factory by investing about Rs 27,000 crore.

According to the information provided by the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region, the government of India, Asia’s fourth largest ‘hyperscale data’ center ‘CTRL’ has announced the construction of a large data center in Assam.

The government’s National Data Center of India has also started the work of building a separate data center for the northeastern region in 2021.

In addition, new industrial centers such as drone manufacturing and software development are being developed there.

As the IT industry grows, it is natural that the need for internet bandwidth will increase. So if the proposed high-speed internet connection from Bangladesh is no longer available, how much trouble could the growing IT industry in northeastern India face?

A top Indian chamber official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, “There will be no problem if the proposed connection from Bangladesh does not come because despite the development of the IT industry in the region, there are still few companies like BPOs there – which require uninterrupted high-speed internet.”

However, the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region is encouraging investors to set up BPOs, for which financial assistance is also being provided.

Shantanu Som, founder and CEO of ‘Somnetics’, has shifted a large part of his software export business from Kolkata to Guwahati in Assam.

He said, “In the last eight to ten years, various infrastructure including roads has improved considerably in the North East. Investments by the Tata group and other IT projects are making big investments there. There is also a large educated young generation who are interested in working in the IT sector. So a lot of new job opportunities will be created there in a few days.’

‘When these new jobs are created, when they all start working with internet connections, there will be a need for additional bandwidth in the northeast. But right now, there is no bandwidth problem there. We get very fast internet at our own center in the Software Development Park in Guwahati,’ said Som.

In his words, ‘Thinking about the near future, if good bandwidth can be obtained from Bangladesh through a submarine cable, that was the proposal. Now, there is talk of backing down from that. Why it backed down from that proposal is a matter for the Bangladesh government.’

Analyst Pratim Ranjan Basu was saying, ‘Surely additional bandwidth will be needed in Northeast India. But such a big plan has not been made by relying solely on Bangladesh for that!’

‘There are already operational connections, along with the cable landing station being built in Dighat, West Bengal, from which high-speed internet connection will also be available, and Northeast India is very close to West Bengal! So, even if for some reason the connection is not available from Bangladesh, I think Northeast India will not face any problem.’

The first internet connection between the two countries is operational

Instead of taking electricity from Tripura in India, high-speed internet connection from Bangladesh to Tripura started coming in full swing in 2021. That management, of course, is done through two government agencies of the two countries.

The center in Tripura is the only international internet gateway in the northeast of India.

According to the data provided by the Ministry of Communications of India on December 5, there are 14 cable landing stations in five cities of the country for internet connectivity with the outside world, in which 17 cables coming from under the sea have come to the surface. And from there, fiber optic cables connecting the internet have spread across the country. That is the main connection of the internet to other states of India including the North East.

In addition to these, the Government of India has built its own internet cable connection under the sea separately for the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep.

Apart from the 14 landing stations for international internet connectivity, three more landing stations are being built, one of which is being built in Digha, West Bengal.

According to the latest data provided by the Ministry of Communications of India, more than 111 Tbps (terabytes per second) of data is being transferred through international cable landing stations.

An official of an all-India apex chamber of commerce told BBC Bangla on condition of anonymity, “The current internet connection between Bangladesh and northeastern India through Tripura is only a 10 Gbps line. A fraction of the bandwidth that northeastern India needs comes from Bangladesh through that line. The rest of the internet bandwidth that is needed comes from different parts of India through various connections, that infrastructure is there in this region.”

‘When the internet infrastructure in the northeastern region, including Tripura, was not so intensively developed, that line from Bangladesh came into use. But now India’s own internet infrastructure has reached the remote areas of the northeast,’ said industry and trade analyst Pratim Ranjan Basu.

Mobile phone on a tree

At one time, it was difficult to get internet connection, even mobile signal in remote areas of the Northeast.

In most cases, mobile connection of any other company could not be used except the mobile connection of the government BSNL. The internet was even weaker.

‘In 2016, I saw a manager of a tea garden in Tinsukia, Assam, placing a worker with a mobile phone on a tree. Mobile signal was available only on the tree. A few days ago, I went to use the internet continuously while passing through that area – connectivity has improved so much,’ said industry and trade analyst Pratim Ranjan Basu.

In his words, ‘Now optical fiber cables have been laid in remote areas of every state. Under the National Optical Fiber Mission, government and private organizations have spread the internet network pretty much everywhere in the Northeast.’

‘The other line that was planned to be brought from Bangladesh was a backup. “If for some reason the internet connection to the Northeast is cut off, then so that work does not stop there, it was thought of bringing a new connection from Bangladesh. We have never been completely dependent on that proposed connection. This was an alternative route, the main connection is intact,” Basu was quoted as saying by BBC.

Source: BBC Bangla