Prasad to lay foundation of third int’l internet gateway in Agartala today

In addition to the ‘look north east policy’ of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Centre is developing Agartala as third international internet gateway of the country after Mumbai and Chennai.

Talking to Millennium Post, Union Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that opening of new gateway in Agartala is the part of MoUs that was signed with Bangladesh during PM Modi’s visit to the neighbouring country in the first week of June this year. 

“An agreement between country’s public telecom service provider – BSNL and Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL) was signed for leasing of international bandwidth during <g data-gr-id="29">Indo-Bangladesh</g> summit on June 6. The new gateway will help in improving telecommunication facilities in the north-eastern region, which is likely to be commissioned in 2016,” the telecom minister said, who will lay the foundation stone of the gateway on Saturday.

Informing further, Prasad said, “The optical fiber cable from Agartala will get connected with 10 gigabit bandwidth of Bangladesh at Akhaura and through Dhaka it will be connected at submarine telecom cable in Cox’s Bazar of South Bangladesh. This connectivity will facilitate northeastern states to be connected with reliable global tele-network which will provide high speed and uninterrupted telecommunication within the next six months.”

<g data-gr-id="25">Initially</g> BSNL will lease 10 Gbps bandwidth from Bangladesh’s lone submarine cable operator to get connected in <g data-gr-id="24">global</g> internet network. The bandwidth would be extended for the internet traffic of all northeastern states – Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh. According to ministry officials, the Centre would spend Rs 19 crore on the project.