NEW YORK, Sept 22, 2021 (BSS) - Prime Minister's Information and
Communication Technology Affairs Adviser Sajeeb Wazed Joy has revealed the
launching of 5G service in the country to take place at the end of this year.
"We are aiming to launch 5G and planning to pilot it at the end of this
year," he said at a business roundtable in New York.
The government is pledge-bound to provide broadband internet to the last
mile, he said, adding Bangladesh actually doesn't have a shortage of
capacity and bandwidth.
"We have plenty of capacity and plenty of fibers (Optical fiber)," he said,
noting that the bottleneck being faced is the last mile connection.
Joy observed that people (users in the last mile) are not connected with
the internet through fixed lines rather they use mobile internet.
He continued, "So, the challenges we face is spectrum incapacity. Because
of our population density, we need a lot of spectrum and just shared
additional spectrum in auction, and we are in the process of freeing more
spectrum for the mobile operators."
Mentioning that they've launched 4G a few years ago, he said ". . . we are
hoping that the additional spectrum will allow the mobile operators to take
4G to the rural areas (last mile)."
He went on saying, "with this together (4G and 5G) we are trying to solve
the last mile problem . . . as there is plenty of capacity and fiber within
the country and connecting the outside."
US-Bangladesh Business Council organized the business roundtable on
September 21 in honor of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who is now in New York
to attend the 76th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
The Premier virtually joined the roundtable titled "Bangladesh Forward:
The New Frontier for Growth" from Lotte New York Palace here on Tuesday.
Highlighting the country's mobile network coverage, the ICT Adviser
said in the last two years, they've launched online identity (KYC) and just a
few weeks ago, introduced another service that enables instant payment to any
bank account in Bangladesh.
Until now (before the launch of this service) it took up to two days for
payment, he added.
Joy urged the participants at the roundtable to look into these, saying,
"You can't miss these services coming online. Your system can connect to them
. . ."
He said they are also in the process of piloting a few other digital
payment systems as well and one is IDPP that allows the MFS to interconnect
in the country.
"So, these are services we are in the process of launching and happy to
work with you on connecting to these and any other ideas you may have," he
added.
