Dr. Forqan Uddin Ahmed :
Recently writing in the newspapers is that the country begins lobbying to sell bandwidth again. We welcome this when we export abroad and use foreign currency for development work. But we are a bit upset about the govt.’s initiative. Because, we have bought the internet services borrowing money from foreign countries for the development of the country. We need to think about how reasonable, it is to export the unused internet showing the excuse. Now we can not use it ourselves? These who control our internet service, they use the word unused or ‘surplus’ in this case. Those people who talk about such trivial tastes, we think they are negative type people and they are not very knowledgeable or have the experience to understand what good work this country can do with the internet. Those who say our internet has become ‘surplus’ and are quick to export abroad, they are trying to mislead the government by misinterpreting the implementation of the Digital Bangladesh Vision Project. We are expressing our annoyance towards these two classes of people.
Internet is not at all surplus in Bangladesh. A small part of the demand has reached us. The people who have internet distribution system are avoiding reaching the service at our home, education center and workplace, wanting to prove that there is no demand, the country it is good to sell abroad.
We will try to show some examples of how they are doing this work in a well organized way, how are our needs and how we are deprived of the development of our dusting with the disruption of the delivery system.
Because there is not strategic implementation guidelines for the vision of Digital Bangladesh, the govt. distribution company BTCL continues to provide internet service in their old ridiculous bureaucratic system. In case of broadband (High speed connection), you have to apply for an application, according to which the demand note, will be given.
BTCL will provide connections if the money is deposited in the prescribed bank with the papers. But it will take at last two months! It’s okay, but to get a connection you have to drag wires at your own expense to the workplace from the BTCL exchange, as much as it is in meters away. Besides, you will have to buy both sides equipment required for connection and will continue with lobbying! At the end will be asked to take IP from Dhaka Mogbazar Exchange. IP found but no connection, again connection is okay but IP is not working; by doing this you can get I MB (or more) connection for at least 6 months. BTCL has introduced the ADSL method to provide a low speed (shared) service easily. If you have a BTCL phone in your house then you can get this connection by buying a modem by not draging in any wire.
But a private company offers this service. There is also the system of application with many papers. If the line is launched buy the modem, the bill will come with the telephone bill. It takes 7 to 15 days to get the service (depending on whether your phone line is okay). In both case. How much is the production cost of time wasted by BTCL and the wasted efficiency of the customer? What was supposed to be the cost? The people of this country have repaid a lot of the money that the govt. has to offer to the submarine connection service. But where is the promise of service? Here are two examples, but the same situation in BTCL’s all internet service.
‘http://www.btcl.net.bd’ some samples of bureaucratic complications are visible on this site. The question is, instead of resolving the technicalities of the service, without taking initiative to deprive the country’s most people from the internet, you can not decide that you have enough internet surplus to be exportable.
In the field of our country where internet service can open the wheel of our life, we have not received instructions for the vision of Digital Bangladesh.
Especially in the service sector (other services including health and education) there was a need to expand the internet of high speed and there was opportunities. It has been found that most of the internet service information has been circulated in the name of the union information center, in most cases the needs of most people have not met.
Only a few of these have been temporarily connected to BTCL (STM-1 MUX) which are very limited compared to the declared 5000 Union information centers or more most union information centers use mobile phone modems which are not cost-effective and very low-speed.
In education center internet is essential in multimedia class management. It is soon that, there are thinking’s about the offline learning process as a substitute for the pilot projects. However if all the schools of the country could be brought in the telephone service then the ADSL connection could be given to them. Without doing this. It was thought how to get internet with the mobile modem, that does not mark any much.
According to BTCL, internet broadband services have expanded in 56 upazilas of 46 districts across the country through their internet information network expansion project. So, why are most of the areas deprived of broadband service on high speed internet service? It is seen that the government has provided mobile phones to the Upazila Health Care Centers, which have been promoted as ‘Telemedicine’ service.
Despite being very close, from these exchanges, we could get the national health database or network by creating an information data base of emergency healthcare services, including internet services at the centers. With the help of internet based remote health care, the doctors could easily consult the big doctors at village level. The health education program could be expanded to rural villages at very low cost. BTCL says, the country has already expanded about 5000 kilometers of optical fiber cable, to provide IP-base services 46000 ADSL access networks have been created in 150 node’s of 42 districts. The way is the customer not getting the result of the expansion of service?
As of June 2012, according to the data, optical fiber is connected to each of the 747 exchanges (64 districts) of BTCL the telephonic power capacity of the country is 14 laks but its 65% is being used. If half of the 65 percent can get ADSL connection, then there is a demand of four to five lakh connections. We do not know whether any initiative has ever been taken to address the needs of internet service across the country. Therefore, the government should extend the service by ensuring the proper use of internet wide infrastructure for our country. It is necessary to increase the scope of this services at low price at both individual and institutional level.
The world has now entered the wireless world (even the mobile phone service is expanding and now it is going to expand LTE). BTCL’s ability to utilize its academic ability is important.
When the internet service develops throughout the country, it will develop with the development of young society that we can not think or think about in the city. Since the infrastructure is built across the country, a realistic rural-based internet distribution policy is necessary. By not raising any new investments at this moment, we can use own internet for ourselves to stay comfortably in the 21st century’s new world.
