Telecommunication Needs for the Internet Infrastructure in Bangladesh

Abstract

Information and Communication Technology plays an increasingly important role as the world is about to turn the corner to “Next Generation Internet”. Advanced technologies and new users of the Internet mean higher data rates and increased Internet traffic, for which legacy infrastructure solutions are providing inadequate. Thus, it is necessary to investigate innovative technical solutions potentially enable the sustainable telecommunication and Internet connectivity to majority of households around the world. The main focus of this paper is to propose a tool that can lay the ground work for the development of telecommunication and Internet access in a developing country. The model will produce a Telecom-and-Internet Access map of a region or a small country. This map will reveal combination of technologies and their rough locations for deployment in order to provide wide-area Internet access to majority of the population at the least possible cost. The tool will be demonstrated by using a case study of Bangladesh.

Biographies

Saifur Rahman, Professor and Director
Advanced Research Institute, Virginia Tech, U.S.A.
Email: srahman@vt.edu

Professor Saifur Rahman is the Director of Advanced Research Institute at Virginia Tech where he is a professor of electrical engineering. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and is currently serving as the vice chair of the IEEE Publications Board. He has served on the IEEE Power Enginereing Society (PES) Governing Board for five years as the Vice President for Technical Information Services and the VP for Education/Industry Relations. He serves on several PES committees and subcommittees including the Education Committee, Energy Development Subcommittee and Customer Products and Services Subcommittee. He is also a member-at-large of the IEEE-USA Energy Policy Committee. He chaired the IEEE Lifelong Learning Council in 2002. He was the project director for the Digital Library Network for Engineering and Technology, an NSF-funded national project involving IEEE, American Society for Engineering Education and the Iowa State University.

Dr. Saifur Rahman joined Virginia Tech in 1979 as an assistant professor after serving on the faculty of Texas A&M University during 1978-79. In 1987 he became a full professor of electrical engineering. In 1992-93 he spent a year with the Tokyo Electric Power Company in Japan as a visiting research scientist. In 1994 he was named the Director of the Center for Energy and the Global Environment at Virginia Tech. In 1996 he came to the National Science Foundation as the Program Director in charge of the Energy Systems Program, a position he held till September 1999. During his tenure he served as the NSF liaison with the Electric Power Research Institute, US Department of Energy, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and other federal agencies dealing with electric power systems, deregulation, critical infrastructure protection, and related issues. His research interests include alternate energy systems, infrastructure studies, electric load forecasting and power system planning. He has authored over 300 technical papers in these areas.

Saifur Rahman holds the degree of Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, having graduated in 1973. Additionally, he received an MS in electrical sciences from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1975. He received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Virginia Tech in 1978. His other industry and government experience includes work at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, Carolina Power and Light Company, consultancy for the United Nations and the Asian Development Bank.

Manisa Pipattanasomporn, Graduate Research Assistant
Advanced Research Institute, Virginia Tech, U.S.A.
Email: mpipatta@vt.edu

Manisa Pipattanasomporn received the B.S. degree from the Electrical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand in 1999. She received the M.S. degree from Energy Program, School of Environmental Resources and Development, Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Bangkok, Thailand in 2001. She is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering at the Advanced Research Institute, Virginia Tech. Her fields of interest are renewable energy systems and distributed generation.

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