The country is not ready for the faster data technology like long-term evolution as the proper infrastructure is yet to be developed, said speakers in a session of Commonwealth Telecommunication Organisation conference in Dhaka on Tuesday. The LTE-enabled handsets are very costly and only 3 per cent mobile users currently use such high-end handsets, they said. The relevant application or contents are not yet available for the top-speed mobile technology, the speakers also said.
‘The market is not yet ready and needs to be more matured for LTE
service,’ Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission director general Wahid-Uz-Zaman said in a discussion on the second day of the tree-day CTO conference.
Quality broadband in Bangladesh still costs around Tk 1,000 for 1 megabits-per-second speed, which is far less than the average revenue per users for voice service, he said.
Only 6 per cent revenue comes from the data business though there are 37 million internet users in Bangladesh, Zaman also said.
‘We need to sit with the government, stakeholders including the central bank and National Board of Revenue to create the environment for LTE technology for the country,’ Zaman added.
The government issued LTE licences to three WiMAX operators last year, but they are yet to launch the service.
The government also awarded five 3G licences to mobile phone operators through an auction in September 2013.
BTRC chairman Sunil Kanti Bose in the day before had announced that the government would provide 700 Megahertz spectrum band for the mobile operators to offload LTE service in the country.
He had added government targeted that there would be 60 per cent internet penetration by the year 2021 and of this number 35 percent would be broadband users.
Currently less than 4 per cent users use high-speed internet.
Robi executive vice-president Somnath Mahalanabis, however, said the 700 MHz was not appropriate for rolling out LTE in Bangladesh.
‘The 700 MHz is good for the rural area coverage but LTE is not for the rural people, he said. So other spectrum bands need to be released for the technology, he said.
Huawei Technologies Bangladesh consultant Harish Bhatt, however, said that prices of LTE-enabled handsets were reducing.
‘Last year the price of LTE-compatible devices were around $500 but this year the price reduced to around $250,’ he said.
Harish also said the handset price would be slashed more when the operators would expand the service.
-With New Age input
