Starting July 10, Agartala will be India’s third gateway to the world-wide web as it gets connected to the broadband highway through Bangladesh. After Mumbai and Chennai, Agartala will be the third such hub which will directly connect to the international internet highway thereby enabling users to connect with the web.
The facility will be launched by the Union minister for telecommunications Ravi Shankar Prasad in continuation with the Digital India Week programme launched by the prime minister earlier this week.
While talking to the media, BSNL chief general manager (NE Circle) DP Singh said that optical fibre cables are being laid upto Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh which will carry the bandwidth. Singh also added that this will soon fuel better internet connectivity in the Northeast region and will enable launch of high-speed and uninterrupted telecommunication the coming days.
Media reports suggested that BSNL will initially lease 10 GBPS bandwidth from Bangladesh’s submarine cable operator, Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL). The network thereafter will connect to the South East Asia internet hub.
A Wikipedia entry states that only 1% of internet data and voice traffic is transmitted through satellite links while the remaining 99% is still carried by undersea cables spread across the world’s oceans.
