Dear Editor:
While the global average for broadband connection speed is 54.33 megabytes per second (mbps), it is only 25.08 megabytes per second (mbps) in Bangladesh, reported the Daily Star on February 06, 2019. Global average of mobile internet speed is 25.08 mbps–––while it is only 9.06mbps in Bangladesh, according to a new report on online habits released by HootSuite and We Are Social. Similarly.
Twelve countries enjoy average fixed internet connection speeds of more than 100MBPS, while ten countries enjoy average mobile connection speeds in excess of 50mbps. In this regard, MA Hakim, president of Internet Service Providers Association Bangladesh (ISPAB), said transmission link was the main challenge in offering better internet speed in the country and blamed those given the Nationwide Telecommunication Transmission Network (NTTN) licence for it.
It is undesirable that Bangladesh should lag behind some countries which are economically less developed than our country. It refers to the very poor, rather shameful, Internet speed in our country. As people around me are incensed at the most unsatisfactory Internet speed in Dhaka and other parts of Bangladesh, Mr A.M.K.Chowdhury’s opinion piece “Slow Internet speed: BTRC should look into it”, printed in the Holiday on 2 June 2017, was an well-timed article. Slow Internet speed is a hindrance to everyday computer users.
According to BTRC and Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL), the price of bandwith per MBPS has been reduced from Taka 27,000 to Taka 625 in September 2015 for Dhaka, Chittagong and Cox’s Bazar. Although the price of bandwidth has declined, service providers are not reduceding the cost at subscribers’ level, said a BTRC official.
Though broadband Internet access is available, the charges for-high speed connections are higher than in other South Asian countries. In Bangladesh Broadband is legally defined as 128/128 kbit/s, which is not in line with the ITU’s definition and many broadband Internet services may not be considered correct broadband internationally.
One portal named “testmy.net/country/bd” says that in Dhaka average download speed is 1.6 Mbps. By contrast, in South Korea, people revel in 27 Mbps on fixed line connections and 11.1 Mbps on their phones. Europe generally has the fastest 4G in the world. India, by contrast, performs worse than any Asian nation in the report ––– 3.6 Mbps on broadband, 3.3 Mbps on mobile.
The government’s Digital Bangladesh is a scheme that includes the IT use for management and administration to ascertain accountability and answerability at all levels of society and state. To materialize the idea of digital Bangladesh, development of countrywide backbone and expected number of human resources are the basic needs.
Nuzhat Hasnain
Mohammadpur, Dhaka
Thursday, September 05, 2019
