The number of mobile phone connections of four mobile phone operators increased to 17.02 crore at the end of January with three operators gaining while leading operator Grameenphone losing connections in the month.
The total number of connections of the operators increased by 80,000 at the end of January from that of 17.01 crore in the previous month, showed Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission data.
Of the connections, mobile internet connections in the country increased by 6.79 lakh to 10.3 crore at the end of January 2021 from 10.23 crore in December 2020.
However, the broadband internet penetration in the country has remained static at 95.22 lakh for the last several months.
With the mobile and broadband internet connections, the total internet connections in the country reached 11.26 crore in January.
Though the number of the country’s internet and mobile phone users has been growing at a decent pace, the quality of service of voice call and internet speed have remained poor.
Customers of the mobile phone operators are experiencing poor voice call quality, including call drops along with network coverage issues. The situation is worse outside major cities.
BTRC chairman Shyam Sunder Sikder recently termed the service quality of the mobile operators poor.
In terms of mobile internet service quality, the country’s situation has also remained poor, making the country’s mobile internet connection the fifth worst in the word.
Ookla, a global leader in mobile and broadband network intelligence, testing applications, and technology, has ranked Bangladesh 135th among 139th countries in terms of providing mobile internet service.
The BTRC report showed that the leading mobile operator GP lost 9.16 lakh connections in January.
The number of operator’s mobile connections dropped to 7.81 crore at the end of January from 7.90 crore in the previous month.
Three other mobile operators gained 9.96 lakh connections in January.
State-owned Teletalk gained the highest, 4.92 lakh, connections in January.
With the addition, the number of the operator’s connections increased to 54.19 lakh at the end of January from 49.3 lakh in December. Teletalk has launched a number of low-cost internet packages in recent times.
The number of connections of Robi, the second largest mobile operator, rose by 2.21 lakh in January to reach 5.11 crore at the end of the month.
The number of Banglalink’s connections rose by 2.83 lakh to reach 3.56 crore at the end of January.
Source: https://www.newagebd.net/article/130564/number-of-mobile-connections-tops-17-crore-in-january