Tech giants like Facebook and Google have set up data centres in India's Kolkata which has turned out to be a blessing for the whole South Asian nation.
Bangladesh imports bandwidth through the International Terrestrial Cable (ITC) from India, providing users in Bangladesh with the same benefits as Indian users.
Moreover, this bandwidth is available at a lower price than the bandwidth coming through the submarine cable in Bangladesh. Experts think that this is one of the reasons behind the decrease in bandwidth usage of submarine cables day by day.
Identifying that reason, the government is going to take initiatives to increase the use of bandwidth coming through submarine cables in the country.
According to sources, the government plans to contact Google and Facebook to build data centres in this country.
Incidentally, about 5,000 Gbps bandwidth is currently being used in the country. Half of that is coming through submarine cable companies. The other half is coming through ITC institutions.
Even a year ago, 60% of the total bandwidth coming through submarine cables was used in the country.
Post and Telecommunication Minister Mustafa Jabbar said: "Since Google, Facebook, YouTube and TikTok have not opened offices in this country, we cannot force them. We can only request them to build a data centre in our country.”
He said: “Organizations like Facebook and Google look at their business case in that country before setting up a data centre. Maybe they haven't found a business case to come to our country yet. We have to keep these things in mind.”
The minister said: “For example, payment gateway PayPal is yet to come to Bangladesh. It is because they think that they can do as much business in this country as they want. As a result, they did not come.”
Mustafa Jabbar said: “However, there was no shortage of our efforts. Maybe one day they will come too. Similarly, if Google and Facebook see that they have an opportunity to conduct business in this country, then maybe they will be interested in setting up a data centre.
When asked about this, Emdadul Haque, president of ISP, an organization of Internet service providers in the country, said: "The use of ITC bandwidth is increasing in the country due to low prices. Users are getting less latency by connecting through Kolkata instead of Singapore. This is also a reason.”
He said: “We will definitely welcome Google and Facebook data centres in this country. Internet users of our country will get better services at a lower price.”