Summit Group’s dominance in the country’s internet sector, afforded illegally by the ousted Awami League regime, is significantly harming the Bangladesh economy and the nation’s other interests.

Summit’s monopoly has made the country unnecessarily reliant of Indian internet supply while leaving nearly 42% of the national bandwidth capacity unused, significantly eroded domestic competitiveness, and harmed the country’s potential to become a regional internet hub.

The group’s sway over Bangladesh internet sector remains intact even though the fate of many other pro-Awami League corrupt business conglomerates have upended since the fall of the autocratic regime in a mass uprising last year.

The Prof Yunus-led interim government has frozen bank accounts and filed lawsuits against a number of crony capitalists from Awami League’s regime, but the administration is yet to reduce Summit’s internet monopoly.

Some measures have been taken. For example, the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) has scrapped its Awami League-era plan to allow Summit to execute and oversee the proposed transit of broadband internet for India through Bangladeshi territory.

The plan would have significantly undercut Bangladesh’s potential to provide internet services to parts of Myanmar and China, as Bangladeshi infrastructure would have been used for Indian purposes.

Through the plan, Summit and its Indian allies were set to extend their monopoly control over Bangladesh internet sector. Thankfully, they can no more do so.

And yet, Summit Communications, Summit’s concern for overseeing its internet business, retains its hold on six different internet service-related services, despite regulations limiting the licenses for a single company to three.

As a result, Bangladesh continues to be 70% reliant on Indian internet supply, 50% of which is controlled by Summit Group. In contrast, in 2021, the government supplied 70% of the country’s internet bandwidth. The state-run Bangladesh Submarine Cables PLC controls 7,200 gigabyte per second (gbps) bandwidth, of which only 3,000 Gbps is being utilised, and the capacity is set to grow to 20,000 Gbps once the SEA-ME-WE 6 submarine cable construction is completed by March next year.

Despite the huge capacity, the government continues to pay over $40 million every year to import Indian bandwidth, thanks to Summit Group’s monopoly.