Abstract
The bull’s eye of Bangladesh has to achieve the millennium development goal and to adapt the globalization, necessitate pursuing the development. Information is playing a driven force in development. As a developing country, Bangladesh has taken keen initiatives to develop its sustainable information infrastructure. Teledensity and overall IT infrastructure is now in a growing stage. Recently, Bangladesh was connected with SEA-ME-WE-4 submarine cable, establishing an optical fiber backbone; its teledensity is changing in rapid pace. But the broadband diffusion in Bangladesh is not on par with other Asian countries, as it is in an embryonic stage in broadband diffusion. This chapter, therefore, tries to show the initiatives taken and the existing condition of Bangladesh to fetch the countrywide broadband diffusion. Efforts have been made in this chapter to unmask the overall development of ICT infrastructure in Bangladesh, so to judge the environment of broadband diffusion in the country.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Synchronous Transport Module (STM-1): The basic rate of transmission of the SDH ITU-T fiber optic network transmission standard. It has a bit rate of 155.52 Mbit/s and is the SDH equivalent of an OC-3 (SONET) (retrieved February 15, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STM-1).
Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH): Synchronic transmission and multiplex system for telecommunication networks. It operates at speeds of between 155 Mbits/s and (so far) 2.54 Gbits/s. SDH will be the future transmission system in the telecommunications network and will gradually replace PDH (retrieved February 15, 2007, from http://www.telenor.no/annual_report/rapporter/drift/ordliste.html).
Submarine Cable: Submarine cable (under water use) consists of copper conductors insulated with India rubber and varnish. Jute Yarn, which acts as a cushion between the cable-core, the inner sheathing of iron cables, provides mechanical insulation (retrieved February 15, 2007, from http://scard.buffnet.net/gofterms/telegloss.html).
Optical Fiber: A glass thread that acts as a guide for light waves. Fibers used in telecommunications usually have a cladding of glass of a lower refractive index. In a communication system, several fibers are made up into a cable (retrieved February 15, 2007, from http://www.science.org.au/nova/021/021glo.htm).
SEA-ME-WE 4: Refers to South-East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 4, a submarine telecommunications cable linking those regions (retrieved February 15, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEA-ME-WE_4).
VSAT: Refers to very small aperture terminal, an earthbound station used in satellite communications of data, voice, and video signals, excluding broadcast television. A VSAT consist of two parts, a transceiver that is placed outdoors in direct line of sight to the satellite and a device that is placed indoors to interface the transceiver with the end user’s communications device, such as a PC (retrieved February 15, 2007, from http://www.geocities.com/westgladeclcp/a6.html)
Networked Readiness Index (NRI): The World Economic Forum’s NRI measures the propensity for countries to exploit the opportunities offered by information and communication technology. It is published annually. The NRI seeks to better comprehend the impact of ICT on the competitiveness of nations. The NRI is a composite of three components: the environment for ICT offered by a given country or community, the readiness of the community’s key stakeholders (individuals, businesses, and governments) to use ICT, and finally the usage of ICT among these stakeholders (retrieved February 15, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_readiness_index).
Unix-to-Unix Copy Protocol (UUCP): An older protocol for sending e-mail between different Unix machines via regularly scheduled modem and network connections. This is the technology utilized by the Usenet for transmitting news postings. Most Internet mail servers now use the SMTP protocol instead (retrieved February 15, 2007, from http://www.websightsolutions.com/faq_gloss.html#sectU).
Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP): A category of hardware and software that enables people to use the Internet as the transmission medium for telephone calls. Voice data is sent in packets rather than by traditional POTS circuits. One advantage of VoIP is that the telephone calls over the Internet do not incur a surcharge beyond what the user is paying for Internet access, much in the same way that the user does not pay for sending individual e-mails over the Internet (retrieved February 15, 2007, from http://www.novacon.com/faq_s-z.htm)