Most of the Bangladeshi website are hosted either at USA or at UK servers. There are many reasons for that. Those web servers are secured, fast, reliable and can handle much traffic and process load. Besides, those are powered by high speed internet connection yet at lower price than anywhere else. Those hosting service providers are experienced and technologically far ahead. Probably this is the reason why everybody prefers USA or UK servers.
Since the demand for web services are growing day by day, it is becoming an important issue to ensure data security and privacy. Think of a government site where it will consists of data which is confidential. Hosting such sites in other country’s web servers will definitely be a catastrophic decision. Fortunately in Bangladesh, the government sites are hosted locally (at BTCL web servers).
Now that web services and E-commerce sites are becoming popular the importance of where these are hosted - becoming an important thing to consider. In many cases the target user group of these sites are solely Bangladeshi users residing in Bangladesh (e.g. bdjobs.com). Hosting these types of websites locally will not only ensure confidentiality and security but also maximum up time for the local users. How? We have seen our national pride the submarine cable snatched a lot of time. We are disconnected from the sites that are hosted at USA or UK servers. Instead, if the sites are hosted locally these will still be available for the Bangladeshi residence although the submarine cable is down. That’s because locally hosted servers will still be available and the DNS servers will still be able to point us to the locally hosted sites. It will actually act like an intranet service inside the whole country. Besides these, if the sites which provide download services like mp3 download, Drama download etc, are hosted locally, a huge amount of bandwidth pressure on the submarine cable will decrease resulting more bandwidth available for other usage.
I remember when I used Sirius Broadband they used to provide users an intranet site/server from where the users were able to download movies, mp3s, natoks, softwares, videos etc. Normally if that service wasn’t there the users would download those from other sources using internet. But the above intranet server could save Sirius Broadband precious bandwidth by restricting users by diverting them to intranet server.
Now If we consider the Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited to be the national ISP, they will be able to save bandwidth if the sites are hosted locally since the traffic requests and sources are both running locally. It will somewhat act as what Sirius Broadband did.
Now let’s focus on what are the hurdles. The bandwidth cost in Bangladesh is too high to run an web server smoothly. Although the above procedure will hardly use the submarine cable bandwidth the ISPs have to pay to BSCCL (Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited) since BSCCL acts as an Internet Exchange (HUB). I am not sure about whether govt has given the charge to any other company to maintain the Internet exchange through which all the ISPs and other companies willing to have local web servers will be interconnected among themselves in the same way the telecom companies are connected. Rather than buying only Submarine cable bandwidth they will be buying local bandwidth through which one ISPs will be able to transfer information with websites hosted at other ISPs end. Submarine cable connectivity will still be required since website browsing request can still be generated from outside the country. For example, the trace route from http://visualroute.visualware.com in the following image.
It is like the telecom industry. All the local and NWD calls are generated and terminated at the telecom operators end except for ISD calls. Only ISD calls require outbound bandwidth to connect with telephones in other countries. All the local and NWD calls are routed through multiexchange servers through which all the telecom operators are interconnected among themselves. Only for ISD outgoing/incoming calls these operators depends upon BTTB which has the only connectivity with international exchanges.
There fore local bandwidth is to feed requests from Bangladesh and submarine cable bandwidth to feed requests from outside the country. The local bandwidth should be in negligible cost. Thus people will be encouraged to host websites in local servers. Moreover this will ensure maximum uptime causing maximum exposure for e-commerce sites. This is the way how the e-commerce culture in Bangladesh can really emerge.
I am not sure whether this methodology has already been established or not, but this really can be a boom. Many companies will come forward with an intension to have a website or web based online operation system. This will not only automate and increase the total output but also will create opportunity for web developers and software firms.
Disclaimer:The above statements are sort of top view of a system and I really can’t dig any deep because of my knowledge limitation. It is possible that the system has already been deployed and I am unaware of it. Constructive replies will be encouraged pointing out whether I was wrong in any point or if the recommended system is not deployable at all.
New research shows Bangladesh may not be as vulnerable to rising sea levels caused by climate change as previously feared, scientists in Dhaka say.
They say satellite images show the country’s landmass is actually growing because of sediment dumped by rivers.
A report by UN scientists has projected that rising sea levels will inundate 17% of Bangladesh by 2050, making about 30 million people homeless.
One its authors said he saw little in the new research to change his mind.
‘New islands’
Satellite images of Bangladesh over the past 32 years show that the country is growing annually by about 20 square kilometres (7.72 square miles), said Maminul Haque Sarker of the Dhaka-based Centre for Environment and Geographic Information Services.
This was due, he said, to the billion tonnes of sediment that the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and 200 other rivers bring from the Himalayas each year before crossing Bangladesh.
Only about a third of this sediment, he said, makes it into the Bay of Bengal.
Much of the rest is dumped in Bangladesh’s vast delta, attaching itself to river banks, or even creating new islands.
Mr Sarkar said that in the next 50 years this could add up to the country gaining 1,000 square kilometres.
But others maintain that Bangladesh is going to lose land over that period.
Dr Atiq Rahman, a lead author of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, told the BBC that there was little in the new research to make him think that their projection needed revising.
He said that many people living along the coast had observed that sea levels where higher now than in their grandparents’ day.
“The rate at which sediment is deposited and new land is created is much slower than the rate at which climate change and sea level rises are taking place,” he said.
So while some new land may be created in parts of the country, elsewhere a much larger amount of land will disappear, he said.
In any case, the new land will take decades to become useful, and so compensate for fertile farmland that was flooded.
Dr Rahman said that what is needed now is a village-by-village survey of coastal Bangladesh.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/7532949.stm
Ericsson will conduct a trial run of 3G for the first time in Bangladesh in the beginning of August. 2 hot spots in Dhaka has been chosen for this trial run. All necessary equipments have already arrived in Dhaka.
In a press conference on last Tuesday the Ericsson authority has demonstrated a blink of 3G service to the present journalists through a video call between two mobile phone set.
Bangladesh government will invite for 3G license soon. In the meantime two companies were awarded a temporary experimental license. Huawei is the other organization to get that beside Ericsson.
Arun Bansal, the managing director of Ericsson Bangladesh has said that they are continuing research works on the deployment of 3G in Bangladesh and unlike the ISPs, they’ll be able to reach even the most remote part of the country through 3G. He also added that, the government of Bangladesh has encouraged this sector to flourish by reducing the cost of bandwidth through Submarine cable.
The Ericsson officials said that it would take no more than 6 to12 months to deploy the full setup and cover the whole country through 3G network once they are given the license.
I can remember the topic became a burning issue during the reign of Awami League Government. It is believed that India has always had a soft corner and better relation with Awami League. That’s why there was a pressure from the Indian side upon the Awami League Government to allow India the transit facility. Thanks to the mass opposition by the people of Bangladesh which literaly resulted in not giving the transit to India. Before describing what problems or benefits this transit may cause let me tell you that the inforecement has started again. Yes, the Indian high commissioner in Bangladesh has proposed again to the current caretaker (!!!) government.
What is this “TRANSIT” ?
Let’s now discuss on what the term “Transit” means. According to the International Transit Law, there should be three parties (or countries) and transit is given by the country between the two other countries which don’t share common border. For Example Bangladesh and Nepal can seek transit facility from India to transport goods through her since India lie between Bangladesh and Nepal and since they don’t have any common border.
What is the “Transit” proposal from India?
India wants the transit through Bangladesh from one part of India to another part of India. Mr. Pinak Ranjan - the high commissioner of India, tried his best to brighten up the financial benefit that Bangladesh might get by giving away the facility. They’ve estimated the monetary value to be around 2000 crore taka per year.
What is wrong here?
2000 crore taka!!A very alluring amount. Specially when it is from our neighbouring Friendly (!) country - India, which really helped us earning the Independence in 1971. But, what level of faith could India earn since then as a friendly nation??
India has always dominated and showed the attitude like a big brother. It’s not many days ago when India refused to sell any rice when Bangladesh was in brink of a major crisis.
Now when, India is having problem with the rebel group in the eastern India they want to use Bangladesh, so that they can reach and demolish the rebel militants easily. How do you think the rebel group will treat Bangladesh if this so called “transit” is given to India.
I am saying “so called” because it actually is not what Transit is as you can learn from the definition of “Transit”. It is like permitting India to use our territory to ensure their sovereignty. But is it worthy for Bangladesh to cause damage to her own sovereignty in the excuse for 2000 crore taka!!! It will cost thousand crore to maintain the road networks which will be used by Indian carriers.
There are other social and cultural disruption that this transit facility may cause since it will be literaly impossible to track down the transit vehicle drivers’/helpers’ activities. Bangladesh being a very religious country is still free from the massive disease - AIDS. It is believed that the main reason of spreading AIDS in India are the truck drivers. How can the Bangladesh governement handle that?
What do you think? What should be the decision of our government? or who should really decide it?
