The Bangladesh Private Cable System (BPCS) consortium is ready to start work on building the country’s first privately-owned subsea cable, according to subsea cable consulting and project management company Pioneer Consulting, who is advising the project.
BPCS comprises Summit Communications, CdNet Communications and Metacore Subcom, which each received licences from the Bangladesh Telecom Regulatory Commission (BTRC) in September 2022. The three companies subsequently formed BPCS to build a private international subsea cable that will supplying at least another 45 Tbps of bandwidth to Bangladesh.
In a statement on Tuesday, Pioneer Consulting said the project has now entered the construction phase. The new 1,300-km cable will connect Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh to the Campana-owned UMO subsea cable, which runs from Thanylin, Myanmar to Tuas, Singapore. BPCS will own rights to three of the cable’s fibre pairs, each supplying at least 15 Tbps of bandwidth.
Pioneer Consulting said it has supported the BPCS consortium over the past two years on route assessment, due diligence, commissioning of the UMO cable system, supply contract formation, and purchasers’ representative management for the survey of the branch route.
Dave Marie, director of client solutions at Pioneer Consulting, also said that BPCS has contracted the firm for project management, engineering, and quality assurance support of the branch cable for connectivity to Singapore.
“We’re proud to be part of this groundbreaking project, poised to change the connectivity landscape of Bangladesh,” said Marie in a statement. “We’re off to a strong start, with all contracts in place and the marine survey completed well before the onset of monsoon season.”
BPCS expects the new private cable to bring badly needed new bandwidth to Bangladesh, which currently has two subsea cable connections via SEA-ME-WE 4 and SEA-ME-WE 5, both of which are owned by state-owned Bangladesh Submarine Cables PLC (BSCPLC). BSCPLC also owns a stake in the SEA-ME-WE 6 cable, which is scheduled to be ready for service in 2025.
Bangladesh’s internet connectivity was disrupted in April by a break in the SEA-ME-WE 5 submarine cable, knocking out two-thirds of the country’s international subsea capacity, highlighting the need for more redundant international connectivity.
“Bangladesh deserves world-class internet capacity and accessibility; we believe this new cable will significantly enhance the country’s ability to meet its internet demand in the coming decade,” said K.M. Tariquzzaman, CTO of Summit Communications and project lead for the BPCS consortium. “This new infrastructure will greatly improve internet speed, reliability, and affordability across Bangladesh.”
The BPCS cable is scheduled to go into service in the first quarter of 2026.
The news comes several months after the US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) awarded a feasibility study grant to CdNet to explore construction of a new subsea cable called the Bangladesh International Submarine Cable (Bagha-1).
