Tay Chek Khoon, vice-president of SingTel, made the announcement in a press conference followed by an open discussion on ICT in Bangladesh at the BRAC Centre in Dhaka yesterday.

Syed Marghub Morshed, chairman of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regularity Commission (BTRC), attended the function as the chief guest.

In his speech, Marghub Morshed hoped that the efforts of SingTel would help flourish the ICT sector in Bangladesh through developing faster networking infrastructure in the country.

Tay Chek Khoon said that SingTel is building a broadband IP backbone via satellite in the region. It is working with Advance Technology Computers Limited (ATCL) to market this broadband IP service.

SingTel is providing Digital Video Broadcasting-Internet Protocol (DVB-IP), the network packages IP including voice, video, Internet-based applications and other online contents into a DVB stream before transmission via satellite to multiple sites in the Asia Pacific simultaneous. It supports broadband Internet connectivity, videoconferences, multimedia video streaming, high-speed file transfer, interactive distance learning and content distribution, Khoon added.

Almas Kabir, deputy registrar of Independent University of Bangladesh (IUB), Prof Shyamal Biswash, Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology discussed at the first session of the seminar titled "Open discussion on ICT in Bangladesh."

Richard Lau, director of SingTel, briefed the audience on the technology of the broadband IP backbone via satellite and its facilities for subscribers in Bangladesh.