Award the 3G Licenses Urges Ericsson to Bangladesh

Ericsson has urged the Bangladeshi government to speed up the process to offer 3G licenses so that the mobile operators can tap the existing 3G phone user base in the country.

"If the government releases appropriate spectrum for 3G, which is the proven global mainstream for the mobile broadband, then we are confident that it will contribute significantly to the country's GDP (gross domestic prodcut) growth," Arun Bansal, managing director of the Ericsson Bangladesh, told the Reuters news agency.

"It is estimated that there are over 6 million mobile internet users and already today 15 percent of the mobile handsets used in Bangladesh market are 3G enabled," Bansal added.

The regulator has delayed the award of 3G licenses several times, and they were last due to have been awarded a couple of months ago. A previous report by the GSMA had called on the regulator to issue the licenses by the 3rd quarter of last year.

The launch of 3G services could also assist in closing the "digital divide" which results in Bangladesh being poorly served by broadband internet services. A recent ITU report on telecoms in the Asia-Pacific region found that the minimum advertised broadband speed in countries such as Hong Kong and Japan is faster than the maximum broadband speed available in Bangladesh.

The country currently has six operators - and according to figures from the Mobile World, ended Q1 of this year with just under 45.8 million mobile subscribers - which is still a population penetration level of around 30%. Also worth noting is that while the country has six operators, only four of them are of any significant scale, Grameenphone (21m), Banglalink (10.8m) and Aktel (8.8m) and finally, Warid Telecom (2.3m). The two remaining long term incumbents, Citycell and Teletalk add up to 3.6 million customers between them.

On the web: BTRC - Mobile World - Reuters

Posted to the site on 10th May 2009