BTRC takes note of discrepancy between retail vs wholesale broadband prices

Posted on July 28, 2009 / 3 Comments

In April 2009, we reported that even though leased line prices in Bangladesh had declined by 74% in 6 months, the retail price paid by consumers had not changed. This was based on the broadband benchmarking data LIRNEasia publishes every 6 months.
We are thankful that the Bangladesh regulator (BTRC) has taken note of our post and the complaints of many broadband consumers in Bangladesh. A recent article in the Daily Star reports that the BTRC has decided to check if the retail prices are dropping in line with whole-sale (leased line) costs.
But what about broadband quality? Our research on broadband quality showed that in the same 6 month period, the throughput (speed) experienced by Bangladesh’s broadband consumers had worsened. Keeping in mind that the there is trade-off between price and quality, we hope the BTRC continues its good work and focus on both dimensions (price and quality) instead of just price.

3 Comments

Amar
July 29, 2009, 11:28 am
Don’t know about you guys but my family in Bangladesh said their broadband service has improved manifold. We can finally run skype webcam both (US to BD) way without any lag. Also they pay about tk. 1000 ($14) for a 256 Kbits connection, which is very cheap compared to even couple of months ago.
Mustafa Hussain
August 15, 2009, 1:01 pm
In order to analyze slow speed of the internet, it is important to understand how
Internet Service Providers operate. Internet Service providers basically hire bandwidth from upstream service providers or access providers BTCL and Mango Teleservices (IIG) and further allocate the bandwidth to their Internet customers. Such bandwidth is terminated at the ISPs network commonly known as gateway. A network may have one or two internet gateway based on the design of the network and policy adopted for the routing of traffic.International Bandwidth should be an important consideration: For a user, end to end is what matters and not just the last mile. However, it would not be fair to expect the operator to be responsible for the part of the link that falls within the Internet cloud at international level.
Grameen phone the leading mobile operator of Bangladesh has got 500,000 EDGE GPRS users. They are only using 400 MB bandwidth to serve their 500,000 EDGE GPRS users. If there 30% internet users are always online. The user will get 0.0004125 bits/sec speed!!!

Mobile operators are generating huge revenue by selling internet services but There have been complaints from the subscribers regarding inadequate internet speed being
provided by the Mobile Internet Service Providers.
waterbeds
November 17, 2009, 5:28 pm
Internet connection now in our area for 700kbps its cost about $20 monthly most of us here now uses wireless connection.