Concept of Internet:

The Internet is a worldwide, publicly accessible series of interconnected computer networks that
transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP). It is a "network of networks"
that consists of millions of smaller domestic, academic, business, and government networks, which
together carry various information and services, such as electronic mail, online chat, file transfer, and the
interlinked web pages and other resources of the World Wide Web (WWW).

Aside from the complex physical connections that make up its infrastructure, the Internet is facilitated by
bi- or multi-lateral commercial contracts (e.g., peering agreements), and by technical specifications or
protocols that describe how to exchange data over the network. Indeed, the Internet is essentially
defined by its interconnections and routing policies.

As of September 30, 2007, 1.244 billion people use the Internet according to Internet World Stats.
Writing in the Harvard International Review, philosopher N.J.Slabbert, a writer on policy issues for the
Washington DC-based Urban Land Institute, has asserted that the Internet is fast becoming a basic
feature of global civilization, so that what has traditionally been called "civil society" is now becoming
identical with information technology society as defined by Internet use. Only 2% of the World's
population regularly accesses the internet.

History & Development of Internet in Bangladesh:

History

 Internet came late in Bangladesh.

 In the late 80’s, Bangladesh was repeatedly invited to get connected to the submarine fiber optic
information super highway link but she didn’t respond. 
 After that, Bangladesh had no option other than to use satellite uplink with VSATs, connecting to
Hong Kong and Singapore based hubs.
 First, UUCP email came in 1993.
 Then IP connectivity came in 1996.
 In June, 1996 the Bangladesh government decided to allow private companies to act as Internet
Services Providers (ISPs) using VSATs.
  In 1998, the government’s decision to withdraw all import duties and VAT from all computer
hardware and software brought the prices of computers down to a level affordable by middle
income households in Bangladesh.
 There are only 0.24 telephone lines per 100 people in Bangladesh. 95% of which are in the
capital city, Dhaka.
 The real picture is, while over half of UK households are online, only 0.1% of homes in
Bangladesh has Internet connection.

Development of Internet

 The mid 1996 introduction of Internet did not instantly create a market. At the end of year, there
were only two ISPs in the country and the number of users were close to one thousand only. The
year 1997 recorded a tremendous growth. The total number of ISPs were more than a dozen and
the clientele growth was ten times higher than that of the previous year. Afterwards, a few new
ISPs started their venture recording a proportionate growth in number of users. As of now the
total number of ISPs in the country is approximately eighteen and there are approximately 30
thousand users connected to them. In last couple of years, some wide variety of Internet
services popularly known as value added services, were introduced. These includes Internet fax
& internet telephony services.

Role of BT&TB
 It has already been mentioned that, as of now the BT&TB is providing the VSAT data circuit to
the uses. Majority of them are the ISPs. The BT&TB arranges these circuits from other VSAT
operators & then simply leases out these to local VSAT subscribers. For a VSAT connection, each
subscriber has to sign an agreement with the BT&TB. To the effect that the subscriber will not
provide a service competitive to them (BT&TB). So far all the VSAT subscribers in order to
comply with the agreement used their VSAT data circuits either for their private use or for
Internet connectivity. Recently the BT&TB has launched its own Internet services and by
implication competing in the domain of the ISPs.
PRESENT INTERNET SITUATION IN BANGLADESH

 Registered Dial-up connections: 120,000 (private sector) & 8,500 (public sector - BTTB)
 Broadband (Radio, Cable, XDSL) accounts: 5,000
 Cyber Café Users: 6,000
 Internet Access Charge for Dial-up connections
 Subscription charge: 500/- to 1000/-
 Cost: 0.35/- (Off time) to 0.75/- (Peak time) per min
 2000/- per month for unlimited access
 Internet Access Charge for Broadband connections
 Subscription charge: 1000/- to 5000/-
 Cost: 2Kbps = 1000/- to 2000/- per month, 64Kbps = 10,000/- per month, 128 Kbps =
15,000/- per month, 512 Kbps = 50,000/- per month
 Internet Access Charge for Cyber Café Users is 15/- to 30/- per hour.
 BTTB (Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board) is now offering its service in 50 out of 64
districts.
 Number of ISPs in 1998 was 2 whereas in 2003, it is an impressive 135.
 Number of users is also increasing fast over the years. There is a major jump in the number of
Internet users from the year 1999 to 2000

IP Telephony, e-Banking & e-Commerce in Bangladesh

 IP Telephony is much cheaper than conventional telephone. But at present, illegal Most of the 28
Banks of Bangladesh use computerized system but they do not yet offer online or e-service.
Standard Chartered Bank first launched Internet banking in August, 2000.
 E-Commerce is not progressing because of
 Poor network infrastructure
 Lack of  human resources
 Absence of related rules

Importance of the Internet

After the WTC attacks, the Internet played a key role in keeping communication going, performing as an
efficient and stable network for thousands of effected workers in lower Manhattan when desk phones and
cell phones had failed.
Unlike a telephone call, which requires a direct circuit connection between two telephone sets, data sent
over the Internet consists of discrete packets that can follow different channels in a sequence over time
and rejoin at the final destination, in a process known as packet switching. For that reason, important
information was able to flow around damaged or destroyed cables and telephone switching equipment.

Common Areas of Internet Usage in Bangladesh

E-mail & Chatting
 The concept of sending electronic text messages between parties in a way analogous to mailing
letters or memos predates the creation of the Internet. Even today it can be important to
distinguish between Internet and internal e-mail systems. Internet e-mail may travel and be
stored unencrypted on many other networks and machines out of both the sender's and the
recipient's control. During this time it is quite possible for the content to be read and even
tampered with by third parties, if anyone considers it important enough. Purely internal or
intranet mail systems, where the information never leaves the corporate or organization's
network, are much more secure, although in any organization there will be IT and other
personnel whose job may involve monitoring, and occasionally accessing, the email of other
employees not addressed to them.
 The World Wide Web

 Graphic representation of less than 0.0001% of the WWW, representing some of the hyperlinks.
 Many people use the terms Internet and World Wide Web (or just the Web) interchangeably, but,
as discussed above, the two terms are not synonymous.
 The World Wide Web is a huge set of interlinked documents, images and other resources, linked
by hyperlinks and URLs. These hyperlinks and URLs allow the web-servers and other machines
 that store originals, and cached copies, of these resources to deliver them as required using
HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol). HTTP is only one of the communication protocols used on
the Internet.
 Web services also use HTTP to allow software systems to communicate in order to share and
exchange business logic and data.
 Software products that can access the resources of the Web are correctly termed user agents. In
normal use, web browsers, such as Internet Explorer and Firefox access web pages and allow
users to navigate from one to another via hyperlinks. Web documents may contain almost any
combination of computer data including photographs, graphics, sounds, text, video, multimedia
and interactive content including games, office applications and scientific demonstrations.
 Through keyword-driven Internet research using search engines, like Yahoo!, and Google,
millions of people worldwide have easy, instant access to a vast and diverse amount of online
information. Compared to encyclopedias and traditional libraries, the World Wide Web has
enabled a sudden and extreme decentralization of information and data.
 It is also easier, using the Web, than ever before for individuals and organisations to publish
ideas and information to an extremely large audience. Anyone can find ways to publish a web
page or build a website for very little initial cost. Publishing and maintaining large, professional
websites full of attractive, diverse and up-to-date information is still a difficult and expensive
proposition, however.
 Many individuals and some companies and groups use "web logs" or blogs, which are largely
used as easily-updatable online diaries. Some commercial organizations encourage staff to fill
them with advice on their areas of specialization in the hope that visitors will be impressed by the
expert knowledge and free information, and be attracted to the corporation as a result. One
example of this practice is Microsoft, whose product developers publish their personal blogs in
order to pique the public's interest in their work.
 Collections of personal web pages published by large service providers remain popular, and have
become increasingly sophisticated. Whereas operations such as Angelfire and GeoCities have
existed since the early days of the Web, newer offerings from, for example, Facebook and
MySpace currently have large followings. These operations often brand themselves as social
network services rather than simply as web page hosts.
 Advertising on popular web pages can be lucrative, and e-commerce or the sale of products and
services directly via the Web continues to grow.
 In the early days, web pages were usually created as sets of complete and isolated HTML text
files stored on a web server. More recently, web sites are more often created using content
management system (CMS) or wiki software with, initially, very little content. Users of these
 systems, who may be paid staff, members of a club or other organisation or members of the
public, fill the underlying databases with content using editing pages designed for that purpose,
while casual visitors view and read this content in its final HTML form. There may or may not be
editorial, approval and security systems built into the process of taking newly entered content
and making it available to the target visitors.
Remote access
 The Internet allows computer users to connect to other computers and information stores easily,
wherever they may be across the world. They may do this with or without the use of security,
authentication and encryption technologies, depending on the requirements.
 This is encouraging new ways of working from home, collaboration and information sharing in
many industries. An accountant sitting at home can audit the books of a company based in
another country, on a server situated in a third country that is remotely maintained by IT
specialists in a fourth. These accounts could have been created by home-working book-keepers,
in other remote locations, based on information e-mailed to them from offices all over the world.
Some of these things were possible before the widespread use of the Internet, but the cost of
private, leased lines would have made many of them infeasible in practice.
 An office worker away from his desk, perhaps the other side of the world on a business trip or a
holiday, can open a remote desktop session into their normal office PC using a secure Virtual
Private Network (VPN) connection via the Internet. This gives the worker complete access to all
of their normal files and data, including e-mail and other applications, while away from the office.
 This concept is also referred to by some network security people as the Virtual Private
Nightmare, because it extends the secure perimeter of a corporate network into its employees'
homes; this has been the source of some notable security breaches, but also provides security
for the workers.
Collaboration
 The low cost and nearly instantaneous sharing of ideas, knowledge, and skills has made
collaborative work dramatically easier. Not only can a group cheaply communicate and test, but
the wide reach of the Internet allows such groups to easily form in the first place, even among
niche interests. An example of this is the free software movement in software development which
produced GNU and Linux from scratch and has taken over development of Mozilla and
OpenOffice.org (formerly known as Netscape Communicator and StarOffice).
 Internet 'chat', whether in the form of IRC 'chat rooms' or channels, or via instant messaging
systems allow colleagues to stay in touch in a very convenient way when working at their
computers during the day. Messages can be sent and viewed even more quickly and conveniently
 than via e-mail. Extension to these systems may allow files to be exchanged, 'whiteboard'
drawings to be shared as well as voice and video contact between team members.
 Version control systems allow collaborating teams to work on shared sets of documents without
either accidentally overwriting each other's work or having members wait until they get 'sent'
documents to be able to add their thoughts and changes.
File sharing
 A computer file can be e-mailed to customers, colleagues and friends as an attachment. It can be
uploaded to a Web site or FTP server for easy download by others. It can be put into a "shared
location" or onto a file server for instant use by colleagues. The load of bulk downloads to many
users can be eased by the use of "mirror" servers or peer-to-peer networks.
 In any of these cases, access to the file may be controlled by user authentication; the transit of
the file over the Internet may be obscured by encryption and money may change hands before
or after access to the file is given. The price can be paid by the remote charging of funds from,
for example a credit card whose details are also passed—hopefully fully encrypted—across the
Internet. The origin and authenticity of the file received may be checked by digital signatures or
by MD5 or other message digests.
 These simple features of the Internet, over a world-wide basis, are changing the basis for the
production, sale, and distribution of anything that can be reduced to a computer file for
transmission. This includes all manner of print publications, software products, news, music, film,
video, photography, graphics and the other arts. This in turn has caused seismic shifts in each of
the existing industries that previously controlled the production and distribution of these
products.
 Internet collaboration technology enables business and project teams to share documents,
calendars and other information. Such collaboration occurs in a wide variety of areas including
scientific research, software development, conference planning, political activism and creative
writing.
Streaming media
 Many existing radio and television broadcasters provide Internet 'feeds' of their live audio and
video streams (for example, the BBC). They may also allow time-shift viewing or listening such as
Preview, Classic Clips and Listen Again features. These providers have been joined by a range of
pure Internet 'broadcasters' who never had on-air licenses. This means that an Internet-
connected device, such as a computer or something more specific, can be used to access on-line
media in much the same way as was previously possible only with a television or radio receiver.
The range of material is much wider, from pornography to highly specialized technical Web-casts.
Podcasting is a variation on this theme, where—usually audio—material is first downloaded in full
 and then may be played back on a computer or shifted to a digital audio player to be listened to
on the move. These techniques using simple equipment allow anybody, with little censorship or
licensing control, to broadcast audio-visual material on a worldwide basis.
 Webcams can be seen as an even lower-budget extension of this phenomenon. While some
webcams can give full frame rate video, the picture is usually either small or updates slowly.
Internet users can watch animals around an African waterhole, ships in the Panama Canal, the
traffic at a local roundabout or their own premises, live and in real time. Video chat rooms, video
conferencing, and remote controllable webcams are also popular. Many uses can be found for
personal webcams in and around the home, with and without two-way sound.

Voice telephony (VoIP)

 VoIP stands for Voice over IP, where IP refers to the Internet Protocol that underlies all Internet
communication. This phenomenon began as an optional two-way voice extension to some of the
Instant Messaging systems that took off around the year 2000. In recent years many VoIP
systems have become as easy to use and as convenient as a normal telephone. The benefit is
that, as the Internet carries the actual voice traffic, VoIP can be free or cost much less than a
normal telephone call, especially over long distances and especially for those with always-on
Internet connections such as cable or ADSL.
 Thus VoIP is maturing into a viable alternative to traditional telephones. Interoperability between
different providers has improved and the ability to call or receive a call from a traditional
telephone is available. Simple inexpensive VoIP modems are now available that eliminate the
need for a PC.
 Voice quality can still vary from call to call but is often equal to and can even exceed that of
traditional calls.
 Remaining problems for VoIP include emergency telephone number dialling and reliability.
Currently a few VoIP providers provide an emergency service but it is not universally available.
Traditional phones are line powered and operate during a power failure, VoIP does not do so
without a backup power source for the electronics.
 Most VoIP providers offer unlimited national calling but the direction in VoIP is clearly toward
global coverage with unlimited minutes for a low monthly fee.
 VoIP has also become increasingly popular within the gaming world, as a form of communication
between players. Popular gaming VoIP clients include Ventrilo and Teamspeak, and there are
others available also.
Risk & Security Systems of Internet

CREDIT CARD RISKS

In reality it's just as safe to enter your credit card number on a secure web site as it is to give your credit
card to a sales assistant or to purchase something over the telephone. Either way, when you give your
card details to someone, you can't get them back. If the person who has them is dishonest, you're at
risk.

Buying and selling online (ecommerce) using credit cards need not be dangerous. We'll talk about the
risks from two different perspectives and discuss what steps you can take to minimise those risks.

Consumers

Most credit card fraud against consumers occurs well away from the internet and is usually caused by
credit card details falling into the wrong hands. This can happen through providing your card details to
anyone, or even theft from your letterbox. Providing your credit card details over the internet through a
secure site is usually safer because you know that it is going to the organisation intended. However, to
minimise any risks, remember the following:

 When providing your credit card details online, ALWAYS use secure and reputable sites. You can
tell if a site is secure by the small padlock icon at the bottom of your screen which indicates
encryption technology is being used

 Check your statements. Report any discrepancies to your bank immediately

The golden rule is to use as much common sense as you would with face to face or telephone
transactions. Only deal with online companies that you know are reputable.

Businesses

Although most media reports focus on consumers being ripped off, it is actually businesses that stand to
lose more through credit card fraud. Most consumers are typically only liable for the first $50 or so of any
fraudulent use of their card, whereas businesses often have to face the possibility of purchsed stock not
being paid for because an invalid, stolen, or fake credit card was used.

If you're a business who accepts purchases online, here are some simple steps you can take to minimise
the risk of fraudulent purchases.
  Make it compulsory for the customer to provide all requested details before the sale is approved,
such as full name, address and telephone number.

 Be a little more careful when online customers give you a billing address that is different to the
shipping address

 Fraudulent orders are more likely to come from international orders, especially those with free
email addresses (eg. Hotmail or Yahoo), because they are so much harder to trace and prosecute

 If in doubt, telephone the client to confirm the order. You may want to make that a standard
procedure for orders over a certain value.

As a business, it's always in your best interest to do everything you can to promote your site as being
reputable and secure. Contact us if you would like further information.

INTERNET DUMPING (or MODEM JACKING)

You've probably seen reports of people receiving huge telephone bills after their modem was "hi-jacked"
by a web site, apparently without their knowledge. The bad news is that in most cases these people end
up being liable for the debt. The good news is that you can avoid it happening to you.

What is "internet dumping"? It occurs when a web site you are visiting purposely disconnects you from
your local ISP and reconnects you through another one, usually using an international or premium rate
number. The web site will usually ask your permission first, but it may be written in tiny print amongst
lots of other information about free downloads or software. It occurs mostly on adult sites.

Here's how you can avoid being caught by internet dumping:

 Read EVERYTHING before clicking OK, especially when you are going to download something
 Call your telephone service provider (not your ISP) and barr international and premium rate calls
on your modem line
 Turn off your computer and modem when not in use
 Don't delete data from your browser's history files, so that you can trace back problems if
necessary
 Monitor other people when they use the internet on your computer
 Be especially careful of adult sites
  Make sure you can hear your modem. Some people have a volume control on their modem and
have it turned down - then you can't hear it redialling.

Risks to Internet privacy

Those concerned about Internet privacy often cite a number of privacy risks — events that can
compromise privacy — which one may encounter through Internet use. Unfortunately, given the
complexity of Internet privacy, many people do not understand the issues. Therefore this section covers
not only "real" privacy risks, but also risks perceived as overemphasized. As an example for the complex
issue of Privacy web site owners could decode your emails or computer Internet History, which is a
breach of the user's privacy.

Privacy measures are provided on several, if not all, social networking sites. On Facebook for example, a
site especially popular among teens, privacy settings are available for all registered users. The utilization
of these settings is simple and quick, although their availability is not always taken advantage of. The
settings available on Facebook include the ability to block certain individuals from seeing your profile, the
ability to choose your "friends," and the ability to limit who has access to your pictures and videos.
Privacy settings are also available on other social networking sites such as E-harmony and Myspace. It is
the user's responsibility to apply the settings when providing personal information and pictures on the
internet.

Cookies

Cookies have become perhaps the most widely-recognized privacy risk, receiving a great deal of
attention. Although HTML-writers most commonly use cookies for legitimate, desirable purposes, cases of
abuse can and do occur.

An HTTP cookie consists of a piece of information stored on a user's computer to add statefulness to
web-browsing. Systems do not generally make the user explicitly aware of the storing of a cookie.
(Although some users object to that, it does not properly relate to Internet privacy, although it does have
implications for computer privacy, and specifically for computer forensics).

The original developers of cookies intended that only the website that originally sent them would retrieve
them, therefore giving back only data already possessed by the website. However, in actual practice
programmers can circumvent this intended restriction. Possible consequences include:
  the possible placing of a personally-identifiable tag in a browser to facilitate web profiling (see
below), or,
 possible use in some circumstances of cross-site scripting or of other techniques to steal
information from a user's cookies.

Some users choose to disable cookies in their web browsers - as of 2000 a Pew survey estimated the
proportion of users at 4%[1]. This eliminates the potential privacy risks, but may severely limit or prevent
the functionality of many websites. All significant web browsers have this disabling ability built-in, with no
external program required. As an alternative, users may frequently delete any stored cookies. Some
browsers (such as Mozilla Firefox and Opera) have an option to have the system clear cookies
automatically whenever the user closes the browser. A third option involves allowing cookies in general,
but preventing their abuse. There are also a host of wrapper applications that will redirect cookies and
cache data to some other location.

The process of profiling (also known as "tracking") assembles and analyzes several events, each
attributable to a single originating entity, in order to gain information (especially patterns of activity)
relating to the originating entity. On the Internet, certain organizations employ profiling of people's web
browsing, collecting the URLs of sites visited. The resulting profiles may or may not link with information
that personally identifies the people who did the browsing.

Some web-oriented marketing-research organizations may use this practice legitimately, for example: in
order to construct profiles of 'typical Internet users'. Such profiles, which describe average trends of large
groups of Internet users rather than of actual individuals, can then prove useful for market analysis.
Although the aggregate data does not constitute a privacy violation, some people believe that the initial
profiling does.

Profiling becomes a more contentious privacy issue, on the other hand, when data-matching associates
the profile of an individual with personally-identifiable information of the individual.

Governments and organizations may set up honeypot websites - featuring controversial topics - with the
purpose of attracting and tracking unwary people. This constitutes a potential danger for individuals.

ISPs

Consumers obtain Internet access through an Internet Service Provider (ISP). All Internet data to and
from the consumer must pass through the consumer's ISP. Given this, any ISP has the capability of
observing anything and everything about the consumer's (unencrypted) Internet activities; however, ISPs
presumably do not do this (or at least not fully) due to legal, ethical, business, and technical
considerations.

ISPs do, however, collect at least some information about the consumers using their services. From a
privacy standpoint, the ideal ISP would collect only as much information as it requires in order to provide
Internet connectivity (IP address, billing information if applicable, etc). A common belief exists that most
ISPs collect additional information, such as aggregate browsing habits or even personally-identifiable URL
histories.

What information an ISP collects, what it does with that information, and whether it informs its
consumers, can pose significant privacy issues. Beyond usages of collected information typical of third
parties, ISPs sometimes state that they will make their information available to government authorities
upon request. In the US and other countries, such a request need not involve a warrant.

An ISP cannot know the contents of properly-encrypted data passing between its consumers and the
Internet. For encrypting web traffic, https has become the most popular and best-supported standard.
Note however, that even if users encrypt the data, the ISP still knows the IP addresses of the sender and
of the recipient. (However, see the IP addresses section for workarounds.)

General concerns regarding internet user privacy have become a concern enough for a UN agency report
to on the dangers of identity fraud[2].

Data logging

Many programs and operating systems are set up to perform data logging of usage. This may include
recording times when the computer is in use, or which web sites are visited. If a third party has sufficient
access to the computer, legitimately or not, this may be used to lessen the user's privacy. This could be
avoided by disabling logging, or clearing logs regularly.

What are the risks of using the Internet for Children?

1. The most common risk to your child is exposure to inappropriate material. There are many sights that
are not intended for children. Sometimes the name is misleading or your child might type in something
innocently that lands them on one of these sites. There is also the possibility that they might receive
email or a chat room message that offends them or hurts their feelings.  They could also receive
invitations to participate or carry out acts that are dangerous or illegal. Instruct them to get out of any
sight that makes them uncomfortable and not to answer any message that is offensive.   Make sure they
feel comfortable talking to you about these incidents and won't keep it to themselves.  You can and
should contact your Internet Service Provider if your child receives offensive material.  If you come
across anything that you suspect of being connected to child pornography contact the Center for Missing
and Exploited Children at 1-800-843-5678.

2. People are not always who they seem to be on the Internet. There is nothing to prevent a person from
representing themselves as someone other than who they are.  An adult can easily "pretend" to be a
child on the internet to gain your child's confidence.  Make sure your child never gives out any personal
information over the Internet. This includes their name, phone number, address, school name, or your
work address or phone number.  You may want to encourage them to use an alias or pretend name on
the Internet.

3. There is the chance that your child could be approached by a child molester.  Never allow your child to
meet with someone they have met on the Internet without insisting that they meet in a public place and
that you accompany them.

4. You may be held legally or financially responsible for something your child does on the Internet.   Don't
assume that they do not have access to your credit card numbers or other financial information.   Make
sure that they know this kind of information is never to be given out by anyone but yourselves.

5. Your child may inadvertantly download a virus that could damage your computer or cause you to lose
information.  Have them inform you before executing any files they download.  All executable files should
be checked by an updated virus checker before you execute them.

Remember that the best way to keep your children safe is to join them and take an active interest in
what they are doing.

Other potential Internet privacy risks

 Spyware
 Web bug (HTML-enabled email)
 Social engineering
 Phishing
 Malicious proxy server (or other "anonymity" services)
 Cookies
Problems on Internet Usage in Bangladesh

The history of internet is not that old even in developed countries. The people of Bangladesh had
to remain in dark about it for a long time because of the non-availability of the service in this part
of the globe. The main obstacle to start the service was to have data circuits to a suitable
overseas location. However in this condition a few young talents started dial-up e-mail service
and made it commercially available for public use. In late 1995 the government of Bangladesh
invited applications to subscribe the VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) data circuits. All the
major ISPs of Bangladesh are providing the internet service using the satellite links VSATs (Very
Small Aperture Terminal). Data circuits using such setup has a natural time delay of more than
500 milliseconds to cross the satellite hop and to reach the down end of the link. ISPs elsewhere
use optical fiber links for internet connectivity. The optical fiber runs over the surface of the earth
so the points there can be connected using much shorter length in contrast to propagation length
of satellite transmissions. Moreover as optical fibers use the frequency of light so that higher
band width is available from a single link than that of satellite. In this local ISPs are lagging.
Because of the high cost of the satellite links, most of the ISPs have single VSAT circuits with
their upstream provider either at HongKong or Singapore. Only two providers have two VSAT
circuits. As the VSAT circuit also have down-time, so it is difficult for ISPs with single VSAT to
ensure un-interrupted service. The Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board BT&TB, a state
monopoly controls and acts as only local VSAT operator. BT&TB, as of now is the sole provider of
land line phone as well. Processing of need requests for VSAT data circuit & phone lines through
BT&TB, often takes long time and extra effort. Other commonly observed problems of least
developed countries also present here. These are less exposures to computers, illiteracy and poor
paying capacity of the users. Many ISPs in the country are undecided to provide services like
Internet telephony, fax-to-fax and voice over IP, as the policy of the government on these are
not clear. Some, however, take advantage of the ambiguity in the policy and offer telephone and
fax services. Other simply refrain from venturing into these. • In Bangladesh the banks,
commercial offices, institutions and enterprises are managed in an isolated fashion. This happens
due to the absence of appropriate computing application platforms and due to the lack of suitable
networks. Many organizations are investing on application development. But integration of these
developments for corporate management still remain a far cry. This is due to the non-availability
of the appropriate communication facility for speedy data transfer even in Dhaka city. Many
organization try to fill the gap either by radio communication or through the use of conventional
telephony. But the effort often ends up in frustration because of their high oprerational cost
against less bandwidth. The BT&TB has laid optical fiber, to connect their telephone exchanges
scattered throughout the Dhaka city. This optical fiber links may be extended to other users on
 commercial basis. In places like Hongkong, all ISPs are connected to an Internet exchange. This
maintains a route for local data and provides backup edundant links to all the connected ISPs. So
the exchange of local data takes place within the territory, and on the event of failure of their
main links, the ISPs are not totally cut off. Similar setups may be possible to establish here and
this will not only generate money for the enterprise but also help in optimizing the country's
expensive Internet traffic utilization. If the optical fiber networking appears to be expensive, the
DSL (Digital Subscriber Lines) technologies can be used using the pairs of copper wire only. If
used, it will eliminate the cost of laying optical fibers. However the cost of equipment in DSL will
be higher. A cost benefit analysis based on a preliminary design will provide the exact answer
between there two options. Bangladesh is among those countries who do not have an optical
fiber link connected to the the world's information superhighway. VSAT technology is quite
inferior in today's state of art data-communication technology. This is because of its inherent
delay in communication. So the government and the BT&TB in particular should establish a node
directly connected to world's information super highway. There are many other problems are
encountered while using Internet, Such as-

 Lack of efficient use of the existing network.

 No direct access to the information super highway.
 Limited human resources.
 Poor telecommunications infrastructure.
 Low-level of computer literacy.
 Widespread poverty.
 Low telephone penetration and connections waiting time.
 Limited Points of Presence (PoPs) of ISPs and Lack of software or content in the Bengali
language .

Conclusion 

 The present government of Bangladesh has recognized IT as one of the emerging sector IT has
drawn interest of a large number of bright students and also that of the entrepreneurs Strong
data network within the country and also with the rest of the world is a must in order to progress
in IT field Equipment as well as appropriate training is necessary for maintaining the system
Many nations who started from the same starting line with us 25 years back are so far ahead of
us today that we find it difficult to believe that we started together. If we act firmly we can ride
on a big wave - a wave which is emerging through technological explosion. Then we may even
catch up with them.