The rural people of Bangladesh would not get ubiquitous access to the internet in the next few years due to a lack of government stimulus in the telecom sector, according to a research jointly conducted by Alcatel-Lucent and World Economic Forum.
The study said, with no stimulus, the urban population of Bangladesh may come close to ubiquitous access by 2015, but the rural majority will not.
The study styled “putting broadband in the palm of people’s hands: a model to drive faster economic and social growth” was released recently.
Along with Bangladesh, the study was conducted for two other countries — Kenya and Venezuela. A group of researchers from public policy, economics, social development, technology and business were involved in the study.
The study found three reasons why Bangladesh will not be successful in delivering mobile broadband connectivity to the rural people. The reasons are a lack of sustainable infrastructure, a lack of affordability and a lack of scalable application.
The study said providing affordable mobile services to everyone in Bangladesh is challenging, especially in the regions that are far-flung and sparsely populated.
Many of these regions need to be served by expensive fuel-generated energy, as they are not in the traditional energy grid.
However, telecom analysts in Bangladesh said already a plenty of mobile networking equipment in the rural areas is running on 24-hour generator support, as traditional power supply is not available.
Many of the base transceiver sites are supported by renewable energy systems, they said.
On the other hand, the study said the high rate of mobile data usage and the growing number of high bandwidth-consuming devices make it difficult for service providers to operate profitably in urban regions.
The study said monthly service charges and handset prices are leading barriers to mobile phone ownership. Even at the lowest currently prevailing usage charges in many developing countries, the mobile phone is out of reach for most of the poor.
Cost, both in perception and in actual terms, is a critical factor in the successful deployment of many mobile health applications, it said.
A major impediment to the adoption of mobile services is a lack of applications, according to the study. It said there are many instances of niche applications that address the needs of specific user groups among underserved populations.
But there are very few examples of multiple applications being offered as a suite that would enhance their value to the consumer, said the study.
The researchers found that it is possible to increase the mobile impact by 36 percent over current GDP (gross domestic products) predictions.
The study also found a common challenge faced by Bangladesh and many other counties: the urban-rural divide. It said urban challenges will be capacity driven and rural will be coverage driven.
The urban areas need to meet the growing traffic demands, it said, adding that the number of smartphones in the urban areas will grow from 400 units per kilometre today to 12,800 units in 2015. The growing number of users will generate a 30-fold increase in traffic. Networks will stagger beneath the load. So it needs to scale up urban networks to ensure sustainable growth.
The study said Bangladesh is going for smart technology to provide enough traffic to urban areas and coverage to the rural areas.
However, Abu Saeed Khan, secretary general of Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh, differed on some aspects of the study.
He said infrastructure development is a continuous process and the telecom operators have covered almost the entire country with their networks. They have also started running their base transceivers on renewable energy, he said, adding that many mobile operators are sharing each other’s infrastructure to reduce costs.
Khan also said mobile service is much affordable in Bangladesh due to lower tariff. Market is also competitive, he added.
If the operators get independence to provide any service in any spectrum, it will help increase data proliferation, Khan said.
The main problem in the sector is regulatory and policy related barriers, he added.
-With The Daily Star input
