In earlier post, I mentioned about BanglaLion, one of the WiMAX provider, not starting their operation from June as promised earlier. In fact they did not start their test operations yet. From recent news, it is confirmed that even though BanglaLion failed to start from June 1, they will offer internet service in limited basis at the end of the month. On the other hand, followed by the announcement of starting from June, about fifty thousand application is already submitted to BanglaLion website.
“Initially we will deploy 15 – 20 towers in Dhaka to cover certain areas” Victor Neuton D’Cruise, operations manager of BanglaLion said. “Surroundings around Prime minister’s office along with some major places are our primary targets. Around 300 towers are required to cover the capital while one single tower will cover up to nine km. Samsung will carry out the project”. Within next three years, it is possible to provide network coverage all over the country, he said. BanglaLion will manage 100 % local backbone to deploy the network.
“Initially we will deploy 15 – 20 towers in Dhaka to cover certain areas” Victor Neuton D’Cruise, operations manager of BanglaLion said. “Surroundings around Prime minister’s office along with some major places are our primary targets. Around 300 towers are required to cover the capital while one single tower will cover up to nine km. Samsung will carry out the project”. Within next three years, it is possible to provide network coverage all over the country, he said. BanglaLion will manage 100 % local backbone to deploy the network.
Is it possible to ensure WiMAX services at remote places of the country in time, Major Rakib, Legal & Financing director of BTRC said, “We delivered a roadmap with final licensing guidelines. We will prepare unified license in future through which voice, video and data is possible. We are working to establish the dream of Digital Bangladesh by 2011. WiMAX can play a vital role to fulfill that dream by providing broadband internet to rural areas.”
About BanglaLion offered package of 128 kbps in 600 Taka, he said, “BanglaLion has not sent any pricelist yet. We are studying prices from other countries. BTRC is committed to reduce internet bandwidth price. We want to provide internet service in less, compare to our neighboring countries”.
New WiMAX providers don’t have any backbone of their own. While replying to a question of how it is possible to provide internet service in such a short time without a backbone, Major Rakib said, “Nationwide backbone is already established by several other companies. That is enough for a small country like Bangladesh. We asked them to deploy network within five years all over the country. At least 85% of the areas should be under coverage. Otherwise fines will be imposed. So we advised them to share network with already established companies to ensure coverage.”
But sharing the network will add to the burden of WiMAX operators. To be profitable, in that case, they have to add the additional cost of backbone with the bandwidth price. At this time, constructing a nationwide backbone may be costly and time consuming, but it can be fruitful in future. Anyways, let us see what happens.
8 comments:
How are you getting these information? Even the newspaper h not reported on this yet. By the way, whats up with augure and BTCL Wimax?
@amar
This information is collected from Daily Jugantor, a Bengali newspaper. For your convenience, here is the url:
http://jugantor.info/news//issue/2009/06/08/news0345.php
To my knowledge Augere has frequency problem, but I dont know exactly what . They may start testing in August, but not sure.
BTCL WiMAX ? I think you are right. It may be a joke !!
So much for digital BD! This country has the lowest ARPU & yet BTRC is happy to accept from operators highest license fees in line with western countries!
The above fact means operators are left with very little money to deploy new networks. This explains delay in setting up a network.
If the government really wants digital BD to come true in the promised time line then it needs to shake up BTRC.
you got that right, instead of viewing these tech companies as Govt's Treasury vaults, BTRC should see them as partners to further spread new technologies to the people.
Hey Amar,
I could not agree more!
BTRC's lack of insight into the telecom world & it's greedy attitude will hold BD back from unleashing it's potential.
Moreover, There have been many shortcomings & mistakes made by the western countries when they launched 3G & other services. We are in the position to not to repeat these.
Instead of customisation of new operating licenses for our local economy & circumstances what does BTRC do? They copy/ paste western license bid format. This has sucked out funding away from deployment into BTRC's fat wallet!
For example, Banglalion having paid 30M USD for the wimax license their funding for full deployment has dried up.
Revenue sharing between BTRC & Operators is the right way forward if BD has any chance of catching up with the rest of the world.
Where is our media on this critical issue? Where is the open debate? On behalf of all decent Bengalis I ask the general media to bring BTRC into accountability for common sense to prevail.
In Bangladesh the top bosses of the telecommunication sector do not know even how to use a computer,their knoledge about IT is nil. This should be given entirely to private sector, if we want to see digital bangladesh.
There will be no business case for any mobile operators for seriously investing in 3G multi-media networks if the government does not force BTRC to change their bid format.
But unfortunately we have a situation where the blind is leading the blind!
amra bangladeshi people bar bar internet ar moto akta important service ki megabite a pabona jokhon world megabit a amra akon kano kilobit a pora aci internet nia amader satha ar koto protarona cholba
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