Bilal9
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- Staff Correspondent
- 10 December, 2021 12:00 AM
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The use of technology has increased manifold in the country due to the ICT-friendly policies of the incumbent government.
Most of the key ICT development indicators have seen a sharp rise due to time-befitting steps taken by the country’s telecom regulator.
Bangladesh is showing robust performance in indicators including mobile handset production, number of mobile users and teledensity, number of internet users and internet density, use and capacity of bandwidth and mobile transaction, according to data revealed by Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC).
Due to the expansion of 4G services, the number of 3G users has sharply declined with a sharp rise in 4G services. Meanwhile, Teletalk under the supervision of BTRC has completed the preparation for launching the trial of 5G service in the country on December 12 marking the “Digital Bangladesh Day”.
The import of mobile handsets has increased despite an increase in domestic manufacturing of mobile handsets, BTRC said.
Some 26.1 million handsets were manufactured in Bangladesh 2020-21 FY against 14.9 million handsets produced in 2019-20.
On the other hand, some 15.2 million mobile handsets were imported in 20220-21 FY which is 4.6 per cent higher than the import of 2019-20 FY.
Once solely import-dependent, Bangladesh is on track to becoming self-reliant in smartphone production, which already captures a major market share with local manufacturing just after four years of inception.
A total of 15 firms including nine local companies are in operation to manufacture mobile handsets in the country.
According to BTRC data, the number of mobile users in Bangladesh now stands at 181.3 million. Some 11.5 million mobile users with 6.19 percent teledensity have increased in last one year.
Currently, 129.2 million people are using the internet with an increase of some 18.7 million internet users in a year and 9.74 per cent internet-density.
Besides, bandwidth capacity has reached 3345.65 Gbps, with an increase of 944.65 Gbps than the previous year. Use of bandwidth increased to 670.48 Gbps. Some 1826Gbps bandwidth was used in 2020, which jumped to 2496.48Gbps in 2021.
The price of bandwidth per Mbps has decreased significantly under the ‘One Country One Rate’ initiative. Prices decreased to 71.42 per cent for 1-5Mbps, 82.85 percent for 6-9Mbps and 88.57 percent for 11-50Mbps in 2021 FY. In 2020, internet cost Tk. 350 per Mbps.
Besides, mobile transactions have increased by 8.5 percent in a year. Some Tk 10.08 million is being transacted through mobile banking per day in 2021, according to the data till September 2021. The volume of mobile transactions in December 2020 was Tk. 10 million per day.
Some 69.1 million people are using 4G services locally while some 11.1 million people are still using 3G services.
Besides, the BTRC has taken effective measures in preventing deceiving practices by mobile operators in the name of providing Telecom Value Added Services and in collecting VAT from Facebook, Google and Youtube.
