Kamruzzaman Bablu :
The government has decided to allow five more National Internet Exchange (NIX) operators to route the local internet traffic. At present there are two NIX operator in the country.
Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) took the decision following a suggestion of a committee tasked with analysing the prospect of issuing additional NIX licenses. ‘But, after this, the commission will not allow any more NIX licenses. The total number of NIXs in the country will be highest seven at most,’ a BTRC official said.
He said, ‘Now we will send the matter to the telecom ministry for approval.’ NIX routes local data traffic internally, without transferring those to the international arena to save time and cost of the Internet Service Providers. BTRC officials said, some other companies have recently showed interest to have NIX license. In contrast, in 2010, after formulating the NIX guidelines, when the telecom regulator called for expressions of interest to obtain NIX license, no one responded to.
According to the BTRC NIX guidelines, an applicant for a NIX license must be certified by at least 10 licensed ISPs with whom it has peer connectivity. BTRC officials said at least two licensed ISPs can apply for a NIX licenses by forming a separate joint venture.
They said the license fee would be Tk 10,000 and the annual fee Tk 5,000. The duration of the license will be for 15 years.
Currently there are two NIXs in the country, BDIX and Novocom, who obtained their licenses in 2012.
In past, two organizations-BTCL and Mango Telecom-are selling bandwidth to the internet service providers. Bangladesh consumes 24 gigabytes of bandwidth as per the IIG (international internet gateway) operators. Almost 40 million people are connected with internet service. According to the guideline, each licence holder will have to design network at least in one area of the districts of Dhaka, Chittagong, Sylhet, Khulna, Rajshahi, Barisal Gopalganj, Mymensingh, Comilla, Rangpur and Bogra within six months of issuing the licenses.
