Sasec information highway : Consultant for optical fibre link to be selected by Oct
KATHMANDU, MAY 16 -
The Ministry of Information and Communications (MoIC) plans to select an international consultant by October to establish an optical fibre link with India, Bangladesh and Bhutan. The proposed fibre link has been seen as the best way to avoid dependency on satellite connections and reduce charges for voice and data services.
The government is building the fibre link as part of the South Asian Sub-Regional Economic Cooperation (SASEC) Information Highway Project supported by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Other major components of the project include establishing 30 community e-centres and a research and training centre for development of ICT in the country. The ADB has provided US$ 9 million for the information highway project.
So far, 20 international firms have bought bid documents for the information highway project, according to the MoIC. “We are aiming at awarding the contract by October,” said Shailaja Regmi, project manager of the information highway. She added that it would take around three to five months for the bids to be evaluated. The last date for submitting bids is May 31.
After the optical fibre link is installed, it will provide an alternate backbone route in Nepal for establishing cross-border connectivity through Cable Landing Station (CLS) at Rani, Biratnagar by connecting to the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited’s (BSNL) network in Jogbani, India and another CLS at Birgunj connected to Raxaul, India.
Recently, Nepal Telecom, on behalf of the government, signed a contract with BSNL, Bangladesh Telecom Company Limited of Bangladesh and Bhutan Telecom of Bhutan for bilateral interconnection. The MoIC will implement the project and hand it over to Nepal Telecom for operation and maintenance as per the cabinet’s decision made last year.
Out of the total bandwidth capacity of 10 Gbps, Nepal Telecom will be allowed to use 70 percent for commercial purposes or lease it to other service providers while the MoIC will provide the rest to internet service providers or telecom operators recommended by the government. “Commercial use of the fibre link is expected to start from early 2014,” said technical expert Surendra Lal Hada of the MoIC.
The project is expected to bring down the cost of interconnection charges between Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Bhutan and provide better data and voice service at a lower price. After the completion of the project, traffic to and from third countries can be handled through India’s undersea optical fibre cable connection linking Singapore in the future.
Source: The Kathmandu Post
