Bangladesh switches on 4G wireless network as regulators license four operators

Bangladesh has caught up with 76 other countries when it switched on its first 4G mobile network, promising internet connections for smartphones and tablets at several times the average speed of current 3G services.

The first major 4G wireless service went live in two cities on Monday.

The telecom regulators formally handed the licences to four operators - Grameenphone, Robi, Banglalink and state-owned Teletalk.

All of the operators, barring Teletalk, had announced they would launch the services as soon as the licences are awarded.

Grameenphone or GP is one of the first in Bangladesh with 4G.

The country’s largest operator in a statement said it has pressed the button on 4G in parts of capital Dhaka and southeastern port city of Chittagong.

Spokespersons from Robi and Banglalink also confirmed of rolling out 4G wireless services soon after obtaining licences.

Robi said it was launching the services in a total of 189 sites, initially in Dhaka, while Banglalink said its customers would have access to the fast wireless service in some places of Dhaka, Khulna, Chittagong and Sylhet.

On Feb 13, Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission or BTRC held the auction for frequency allocations.

Operators GP and Banglalink acquired new frequencies while Robi only went for tech neutrality, which means it will use the existing frequencies to offer 4G services.

It is now certain that the country’s oldest mobile phone service provider CityCell will not be back in business as it did not take part in the bidding, but had applied for 4G licence in 2017 with other operators.

The regulators have raised Tk 52.89 billion in revenue from frequency allocation and tech neutrality fees from the three mobile operators.

State-owned Teletalk, which got a licence on Monday, is yet to pay for tech neutrality with the deadline for it ending on Tuesday.

Its Managing Director Kazi Golam Quddus told bdnews24.com at the licence-awarding ceremony that they will launch 4G service ‘very soon’.

BTRC Chairman Shahjahan Mahmood handed over documents to the top officials of the operators at the ceremony attended by Telecom and IT Minister Mustafa Jabbar.

Mustafa Jabbar

The minister again asked the operators to provide quality 4G services.

He also said it was not right for the operators to charge the customers for switching to 4G network.

The BTRC chief agreed.

Shahjahan also said only 10 percent of the users had 4G-enabled handsets and added the government was working to resolve the problem. 

Customers are being promised speeds at 7 megabits per second (Mbps), as fast as the average home broadband connection – meaning activities like video calling, live online gaming and watching video in high definition will no longer be a slow and frustrating experience over mobile connections.

But TIM Nurul Kabir, Secretary General of the Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh or AMTOB, earlier told bdnews24.com the customers will not get the speed initially.

The 4G connection will halve the time to download or upload data now needed in the 3G network but they will have to wait for some time to get full facilities of 4G technology, he had added.

According to the BTRC, the monthly average usage of data by a mobile internet user was below 100Mb when 3G services were launched more than four years ago, and now it is around 700Mb.

In Bangladesh, 70 percent of the mobile-phone users use feature phones while the remaining 30 percent have smartphones, with 10 percent of those being 3G-enabled.