While looking back to 2014, the country's telecommunication sector witnessed a significant growth in mobile Internet users with the expansion of third generation mobile broadband service across the country. Nearly 10m subscribers enjoyed the facility.
But except the 3G expansion and related rise in Internet users, the telecom sector made no other remarkable progress in the outgoing year, according to market insiders.
“Sorry to say, I haven't found any notable success in telecom and IT sectors in 2014,” Mostafa Jabbar, an ICT entrepreneur, told Dhaka Tribune on Tuesday.
“There were very few successes. I would say overall performance was not good,” he added.
Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission's data showed as of November this year the country saw an increase of over 7.2m Internet users.
The growth was 35.85% compared to previous year. The growth of active SIM connections was not that good.
While in 2012 the market enjoyed having 11.7m active SIM cards, in 2013 the number came down to 6.1m and now to 5.6m.
But in 2012 the Internet market had 2.6m new customers and added 5.3m new connections in 2013 and 7.2m in 2014.
With the increase in mobile Internet users, the smartphone market received a good response from the customers in the year, which is expected rise further in the coming year.
“The rise in Internet use was satisfactory in the outgoing year as we had been able to establish a faster networking across the country. It will also be boon for building a 'digital county' soon,” said TIM Nurul Kabir, secretary general of Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh (Amtob).
But the Wi-MAX operators experienced a bad year as the number of Wi-MAX Internet users slipped every month. As of November, the number has dropped to 249,000 from 315,000 in the beginning of the year while the mobile companies boast having more than 41.5m Internet users.
“We are getting so called fastest internet service in the city, but call drops are frequent and the quality of service is poor,” said Sanzida Khanom, a student at East-West University.
During the year, there was also an expansion of mobile banking service.
Data showed at the end of the year the country exceeded 120m active SIM cards with with 45m Internet connections.
The country's Facebook users crossed 10m as of November. Business has also found a place on Facebook.
“Currently the country has more than 1,000 e-commerce entrepreneurs as Facebook commerce is increasingly becoming popular,” said Razib Ahmed, president of e-Commerce Association of Bangladesh (e-CAB).
In 2014 BTRC had faced row over dues from telecom service providers, which totalled more than Tk5,320 crore as outstanding fees, charges and revenue sharing amounts. The regulator’s all steps failed to recover the money.
Hi-tech park was a much-talked issue in the year. It has not been possible to be built in last one and half decades.
Export of Internet bandwidth to India remained another big issue in the year. But no decision on the export was made.
The regulator could not introduce Mobile Number Portability (MNP) after trying for long though it was demand of time.
Launching of the country's own satellite Bangabandhu-1 could not be possible. It was scheduled to be launched by June 2014. After changes of date twice, it has been now set for 2017.
The cut in international incoming call termination rate led to a loss of $22.43m revenue for government in last two and half months. Besides, the revenue sharing percentage was restructured under an executive order.
However, some projects raise hopes in the sector. On March 7 Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Ltd (BSCCL) officially joined the submarine cable SEA-ME-WE-5 – its second – and hopes to get connected to it by the last quarter of 2016.
Fourteen foreign companies will construct and maintain the cable. The companies will provide up to 24Tbps Internet bandwidth to BSCCL.
The government also introduced digital signature in November this year with a limited scale.
In diplomatic side, the government was successful in retaining council membership in International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the world's highest policy making body of the sector.
But the country's representation in last tenure was not good and could not provide any any significant help for the betterment of the country.
While talking with Dhaka Tribune, Mostafa Jabbar, also the former president of Bangladesh Computer Samity, praised the merger of the ICT and Telecommunication ministries.
But he said the merger could make any significant development in the sector.
“Young minister was a good thing. It has also some negative aspects,” Mostafa Jabbar said.
“We saw five ministers in the telecom and ICT ministries in last two and half years – three ministers in the ICT section only in two years. But could they make any significant development?” Mostafa Jabbar said.
On the other hand, TIM Nurul Kabir said the budget was not favourable for the telecom industry as it imposed surcharge on handsets and mobile phone uses. The government also increased value added tax to 15% from 10% on mobile handset imports, he said.