The maiden private sector submarine cable is at risk of missing timely rollout by August 2026, the consortium of three homegrown firms that invested in the $135 million project has warned.
Already spending nearly $70 million, they connected to the international trunk cable and have now been waiting for the state permission to lay the 1,300km branch cable to Cox’s Bazar for ten months.
The trunk cable – UMO Submarine Cable – owned by Singapore-based Campana Group Pte Ltd, backed by Japanese Mitsui, has connected Singapore and Myanmar.
The consortium, accomplishing its marine survey for feasibility in April last year, ordered the connecting cables in June from Chinese HMN Technologies Company. They also ordered active equipment to light up the subsea infrastructure from US Company Infinera which was later acquired by Finish giant Nokia.
Having everything manufactured, they wrote to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in December 2024 for a no objection certificate (NOC) to let five Chinese ships enter and lay cables in the Bangladeshi sea.
“We were expecting it by June. Knocking door to door for months, we now feel we are pushed into a procedural loop,” said Arif Al Islam, co-founder and managing director of Summit Communications, the lead member of the consortium.
TIMES of Bangladesh found that the NOC was permitted by Ministry of Power and Energy, Ministry of Shipping, Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock, Ministry of Defense and the Armed Forces Division. However, it has been stuck at the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Environment.
“Without the NOC by 25 October, we will miss this winter season to lay the branch cable and wait for another year,” said Islam.
The work contract and ships booking all have been done for this winter to let the cable land to Cox’s Bazar by March-April next year. Missing the deadline will result in cost overrun, and more importantly here emerged a risk of license cancellation by the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) due to no rollout in time, he added.
“We have paid 25% Tax-VAT on the payments made to foreign firms. Even if the project does not advance from this stage, we have to pay the remaining sum to foreign companies as per the contracts,” said Aminul Hakim, managing director of Metacore Subcom, another member of the consortium.
“Our foreign currency investments are at risk. In that case, the country is also at risk of losing huge sums due to more bandwidth imports from India,” said Hakim.
However, officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said they have not received any documents in this regard from the sponsoring Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications.
“There would be no scope to delay such NOCs if the Posts and Telecommunications Division had issued a recommendation letter,” said Commodore Sheikh Mahmudul Hassan, head of the Maritime Affairs Unit at the Foreign Ministry.
“In the meantime, we have already cleared two such NOC requests,” he added.
Pushed into a procedural loop
For the cable-laying ships’ NOC, the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) wrote to each of the relevant government offices in December 2024. Copies of the documents were also sent to the Posts and Telecommunications Division.
Denying any lack of cooperation, BTRC Commissioner Iqbal Ahmed told TIMES of Bangladesh, “We even supported the private consortium in finding lands for the cables’ landing station in coordination with the Cox’s Bazar DC office.”
In response to a question why the Posts and Telecommunications Division did not forward the matter to the MoFA, Chief Adviser’s Special Assistant for the Ministry of Posts, Telecommunication and ICT Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb, told TIMES of Bangladesh, “No such file came to me officially.”
He, however, in a public event in the capital earlier this year, had said no one linked to money laundering or killing people will be allowed to own any telecom infrastructure in the international layer of the future telecom ecosystem.
Submarine cables fall in the international layer, as outlined by the BTRC and the government.
The consortium consists of Summit Communications, CD Net Communications and Metacore Subcom.
Controversial businessman Chowdhury Nafeez Sarafat, ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s information state minister Mohammad A Arafat were linked to CD Net, and the Summit family was blessed by the Hasina regime.
Telecom entrepreneur Asif Mahmood, chairman of ADN Telecom, has recently secured regulatory approval to join the consortium by injecting capital into CD Net.
“Looks like a quarter in the government will give it a colour wrongly and delay this project in any way. So, these people inside the government will rather favour Indian internet exporters by not allowing local submarine cables,” he complained.
“If anyone linked to the consortium is found guilty of any illegal activities, the government can even confiscate their shares, but it should not risk national assets like submarine cables.”
They have been criticised for bundling the three sets of cables into a single outer jacket instead of laying them separately, which critics say compromises redundancy. However, in response, consortium members said that the decision helped them save significant costs during a severe foreign currency crisis.
The cost-benefit
The consortium documents estimated that mobile 5G, local Starlink userbase and Starlink’s exports alongside the mobile operators’ wifi-based calling together will more than triple the national bandwidth demand to 32 terabits per second (Tbps) in 2030.
The UMO Submarine Cable will add 51 Tbps bandwidth capacity to the existing national capacity of 7.2 Tbps, while the lone submarine cable operator Bangladesh Submarine Cables PLC (BSCPLC) in a media statement on Saturday said its upcoming SEA-ME-WE 6 cable will raise the total to 30 Tbps before 2027.
Right now, two state-owned cables by BSCPLC are catering to half of the demand of nearly 9 Tbps, while the remaining half is being imported from India via terrestrial cable, costing the country nearly $50 million a year.
Bangladesh paid Indian firms $300 million in the past 13 years against bandwidth imports, which could be used for owning multiple submarine cables like UMO for a total capacity of around 100 Gbps.
“We foresee that in the next two years Bangladesh will pay India $185 million, not to own bandwidth capacity, but to import and use the bandwidth,” Aminul Hakim said.
He added that only a $100 million investment by private companies like theirs could have averted the $185 million bandwidth import costs alongside building national assets that would serve for a quarter century.
Unlike India, Bangladesh has long been struggling to attract global giants like Meta, Google, Akamai for setting their data centres locally.
“I talked to most of them and they said they look for private sector submarine capacity while Bangladesh has only two cables by the government company BSCPLC,” said Asif Mahmood.
The consortium claimed that it could halve the bandwidth cost as its project cost is less than half of that of the state-owned firm.
The US-China debate
The US-China debate is heating up in Bangladesh’s telecom industry as the US Clean Cable Initiative does not accept any “untrusted” cable, a term largely referring to those manufactured by Chinese firms.
Chief Adviser’s Special Assistant Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb recently told Bengali national daily Kalbela that the United States had not issued any formal objection, but their position on “untrusted” cables was clear.
“They informally asked that no ‘untrusted’ cable be used in Bangladesh, and this has put us in an embarrassing position,” he said.
“We will not do anything that creates geopolitical tensions. I cannot put the Foreign Ministry at risk just for the sake of a licence under my ministry,” Taiyeb said.
He urged the consortium to opt instead for “trusted” cables.
Consortium members, however, disputed the government’s narrative and argued that the US concept of “trusted” versus “untrusted” cables was being misinterpreted.
According to them, the security of a submarine cable system depends on the active equipment that powers the fibre and handles data transmission.
They pointed out that the active devices at both ends are manufactured by a US company, while a Chinese supplier was chosen only to manufacture and lay the physical cables as a cost-saving measure – reducing expenses by at least one-third.
They also said that no Chinese firm would be involved in maintaining the infrastructure once installed.
“It is ironic that a US and a British consultancy firm designed our project and procurement plan for several million dollars,” said Arif Al Islam.
Asif Mahmood added, “The fear of US opposition that is being spread is baseless. If Bangladesh is punished for connecting to a cable owned by a Singaporean firm and backed by Japanese giant Mitsui, then why are Singapore and Thailand not facing similar consequences for being connected at the other ends?”
