Satellites

The Awami League government has announced that Bangladesh will join Pakistan and India in having its own geostationary communications satellite to improve the internal and external lines of communication. This can be welcomed on many fronts; Bangladesh is poorly served with international communications. The one fibre optic cable link is regularly dug up by thieves because they think it has value as scrap (in 2007 the service was disrupted 28 times by this means). A number of offers have been made by Indian concerns to end the reliance on a single link and there are Bangladeshi interests eager to enter telecommunications on a larger scale. The mobile phone market has been one of the most rapidly increasing telecommunications markets in the world (over 50% of the population now has access to a mobile phone. In 2006 it was under 20%) and can thus be regarded as a success. Its uptake has been assisted by micro financing from Grameem and BRAC for example and interestingly Bangladesh has a clearly defined telecommunications policy whereas there is still no general communications policy enacted. It is argued that this is because the telecom market is owned by foreign interests (Telnor/Norway and Warid/Saudi Arabia) while the local TV, radio and newspaper sectors are owned and controlled by local interests, most of whom have strong political ties. So where does a satellite fit?

One of the guiding principles of Bangladeshi policy as such has been to protect the state owned institutions - BTC and BTCC - who provide fixed telephony services and international communications access. Launching and controlling a satellite fits with this official stance. However, I'm not sure that the proponents of the medium fully understand what is involved. For example, the issue of censorship springs to mind; it has been stated that satellites remove the need for cable but the most successful services combine the two, which is especially true if you wish to control/censor content. Even with a spot beam it's difficult to control the distribution of images and information but with a cable system you just have to flick a switch or pull a plug. There is also the issue of competition with the well established Indian satellite services. There seems to be a naive hope that Bangladeshis will opt for local product. They don't at the moment with the Indian programs, especially in urban centres, easily out rating the local satellite providers among the young and middle classes.

I'm not opposed to the introduction a a Bangladeshi satellite provider; it is long over due but I am concerned about the form it will take, especially if it remains a government instrumentality. More repeats of Tagore songs and folk dancing is a possibility!