Alexandria cable cuts slow internet in Bangladesh

Dhaka, Jan 30 (bdprem.com) -- The SEA-ME-WE4 submarine cable has been cut in Alexandria of Egypt Wednesday, suspending the BTTB's internet connectivity with the Europe and USA, a BTTB official said. The BTTB official could not confirm how long it will take to restore the link. In a statement, the BTTB said the mishap in Alexandria took place at 10:15am Bangladesh time. But the cause of the mishap remains unknown to the authorities. Currently the western hemisphere-bound internet traffic is diverted via Singapore across the Pacific, the official said. But the low capacity of the interim route has caused congestion and slowed the internet speed across Bangladesh. The mishap at Egypt's Mediterranean coast snapped BTTB's four units of STM4 or 620 megabits per second bandwidth of international internet links. But the Singapore route is capable of bearing half of the load, the official explained. Both ends of the Suez Canal are infamous for cable cuts due to high maritime traffic. Yet it remains the submarine cable operators' favourite to link Asia and Africa with the Europe and US, in terms of costs. "That's why all the neighbours of Bangladesh have connected themselves with the numbers of transpacific submarine networks," a telecoms analyst said. The BTTB official blamed the immediate past BNP-led four party alliance for not responding to the invitation of joining the Asia American Gateway submarine cable consortium to build a transpacific network. The telecoms ministry has also been sitting on a similar proposal for three months. "Bangladesh must have an alternative submarine cable route to span the globe for full redundancy," he said. "Otherwise, the country will keep suffering from the mishaps such as Alexandria's," the BTTB official said.