Bangladesh Archives — LIRNEasia


Over the past decade, both internet penetration and digital media user base have increased substantially.
LIRNEasia researchers presented work on distance education and risk communication at Sri Lanka's National Conference on COVID-19 in January 2021.
Slightly malfunctional signaling system can cause a train wreck. And it is no different with telecoms policy. Bangladesh enacted the International Long Distance Telecommunication Service (ILDTS) Policy in 2007. As opposed to fast convergence at technology front, this policy has savagely diverged wholesale supply chain of broadband followed by tagging licenses to each fragment of service. My article on the devastating consequences of this policy.
A look back on the policy impacts we've made with our research, over 15 years of work in the Asia Pacific
A list of selected media coverage on AfterAccess following dissemination of the data and report in Dhaka, Bangladesh

AfterAccess Asia Report 2.0

Posted on November 5, 2018  /  0 Comments

LIRNEasia. (2018). AfterAccess: ICT access and use in Asia and the Global South (Version 2.0). Colombo: LIRNEasia
AfterAccess (nationally representative) survey data cannot be compared with The Internet World Stats or other supply-side numbers; to do so is simply inaccurate.

AfterAccess Asia Report

Posted by on October 4, 2018  /  0 Comments

LIRNEasia. (2018). AfterAccess: ICT access and use in Asia and the Global South (Version 1). Colombo: LIRNEasia
The AfterAccesssurveys – recently launched in Bangladesh by a regional ICT policy think-tank, LIRNEasia– reveal important statistics regarding mobile and internet access and use in the country.
The AfterAccess surveys have revealed that by late 2017 only 13% of Bangladeshis aged 15-65 had EVER used the Internet and social media. This is despite 45% of the same age group owning an Internet-friendly device.
Presented by Helani Galpaya and Tharaka Amarasinghe on 2 October 2018 in Dhaka, Bangladesh
Recently I apprehended looming anarchy due to lack of regulatory clarity on blocking websites in Bangladesh. Evidently it has struck the country’s popular online newspaper.
It was back in 2009 that I was criticized for saying that regulation based on an understanding of the operative Budget Telecom Network Model did not permit strict regulation of quality of service. It was also around then that we started focusing on taxes as a factor. That was repeated many times in Bangladesh by us, for example, when I outlined what needed to be done to achieve Digital Bangladesh. That these things have to be said again and again, indicates we have not been very effective. The national exchequer gets Tk 51 of every Tk 100 spent by a mobile user, leaving less money for the operators to develop network and run business smoothly, the GSMA said yesterday.
Mustafa Jabbar, the newly appointed minister for the Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology, cannot waste much time on receiving bouquets and greetings. Prime minister Sheikh Hasina has offloaded this portfolio on him after unceremoniously ejecting her veteran comrade in October 2014. Since then Hasina had been minding this ministry besides discharging her prime ministerial duties. She depended on two junior ministers – Zunaid Ahmed Palak for Information Technology and Tarana Halim for Posts and Telecommunications – to run the show. It had been a poor show and Jabbar must fix it.
When we discovered that Nepal had only spent 2.6 percent of the universal-service funds it had collected since 1997, we were shocked. No government could do worse, we thought. But we were wrong. The Bangladesh government’s disbursement rate is much easier to calculate.