Optical & Fixed Networks

SEA-ME-WE-5 repairs disrupt Bangladesh internet services (again)

SEA-ME-WE-5 repairs disrupt Bangladesh internet services (again)

State-owned Bangladesh Submarine Cables (BSCPLC) has warned that internet services will experience slowdowns or disruptions from now until Monday due to repairs being carried out on the SEA-ME-WE-5 subsea cable.

In a statement released on Wednesday, BSCPLC said that the SEA-ME-WE-5 consortium would conduct fault repair maintenance on the cable’s S1.5.1 shunt from Thursday evening (April 9) local time to the morning of April 13.

During that time, the repair work will impact circuits routed between Singapore and SEA-ME-WE 5’s landing station in Kuakata, which may result in slower internet speeds or partial service interruptions, BSCPLC said.

BSCPLC added that service on Bangladesh’s other international subsea cable route, SEA-ME-WE-4, will continue as normal.

However, SEA-ME-WE-4 provides only a third of Bangladesh’s international subsea cable capacity at around 800 Gbps, compared to roughly 1.7 Tbps on SEA-ME-WE 5. A break on the same route in 2024 heavily impacted internet services in the country, highlighting the need for Bangladesh to install more international capacity.

BSCPLC – which is a stakeholder in both subsea cables – is also a member of the SEA-ME-WE 6 cable consortium, but that system’s ready-for-service date has been pushed back to 2027.

The Bangladesh Private Cable System (BPCS) consortium announced plans in September 2024 to construct a privately-owned 1,300-km subsea cable connecting Cox’s Bazar to the Campana-owned UMO subsea cable that runs from Myanmar to Singapore, giving the country another 45 Tbps of capacity.

In December last year, BPCS contracted Nokia to supply submarine line terminal equipment for the project, which is tentatively slated to be ready for service in the second half of this year.



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