Adrenaline didn’t flow in Bangladesh 3G auction today. It could be anything but auction when four bidders show up for four licenses. Bangladesh government has priced US$20 million per Megahertz for 40 MHz of spectrum in 2100 MHz band. It is in addition to 10 MHz spectrum being assigned to state-owned Teletalk. Theoretically, Grameenphone (Telenor), Banglalink (Vimpelcom), Robi (Axiata) and Airtel (Bharti Airtel) could have had at least 10 MHz each. The regulator was equipped with software and a Consultant to conduct the over-hyped 3G auction this morning. It was, however, a flop show.
During the first round, Grameenphone has offered US$21 million per MHz for a 10-MHz block. Silence crawled in the room thereafter. It became clear that the mobile industry of Bangladesh refuses to pay more than 0.5% of the floor price for 3G spectrum. Grameenphone got what it wanted and the others happily walked out with 5 MHz each during the second round of bid. As a result, the government has ended up with 15 MHz (37.5%) of unsold 3G spectrum worth $315 million. That is in brief the boring story of 3G spectrum auction in Bangladesh, which is another vote of no-confidence to the abysmal regulatory environment.
(Note: A correction was made on the volume of unsold spectrum.)
2 Comments
sajjad
Left over spectrum is 15 MHz not 5.
Abu Saeed Khan
Thanks for correcting.
LIRNEasia at the IDRC EmpowerED Global Convening in Uruguay
On 13–16 October 2026, the EdTech Hub hosted the IDRC EmpowerED Global Convening in Montevideo, Uruguay, bringing together regional partners to share lessons on educational technology (EdTech) and AI in education. LIRNEasia CEO Helani Galpaya and Senior Research Manager Isuru Samaratunga participated in the convening, where Isuru shared emerging lessons from the EdTech Asia Hub, drawing on five regional country projects.
Nepal’s Bhotekoshi Disaster: Every Link Existed, Nothing Joined Them
On 26 August 2026, every component of Nepal's emergency communication system existed, including seismic monitoring, river gauges, a forecasting agency, a national SMS service, two mobile networks, volunteer mappers and a command post. What failed were the connections between them.
RECON-SL: A Sri Lanka Household Electricity Dataset for ML & AI Research
RECON-SL is an open dataset developed by LIRNEasia with funding support from the Lacuna Fund and in partnership with LECO. It combines electricity consumption records, smart meter readings, and household survey data from over 4,000 Sri Lankan homes to support energy policymaking, social research, and machine learning.
Links
User Login
Themes
Social
Twitter
Facebook
RSS Feed
Contact
9A 1/1, Balcombe Place
Colombo 08
Sri Lanka
+94 (0)11 267 1160
+94 (0)11 267 5212
info [at] lirneasia [dot] net
Copyright © 2026 LIRNEasia
a regional ICT policy and regulation think tank active across the Asia Pacific