4G not flourishing for handset dearth
The initial enthusiasm for fourth generation (4G) mobile services has started to fall off in the absence of affordable 4G-enabled handsets in the country, Robi officials said in an event yesterday.
Rolled out in December 2016 by Teletalk and in February last year by the three private operators, 4G has 1.17 crore active users as of December last year out of the 8.54 crore mobile internet subscribers, according to Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission.
“The penetration of 4G handsets growth is not up to the mark,” said Shahed Alam, head of corporate and regulatory affairs at Robi.
At present, about 40 percent of the handsets in use are 3G-enabled. The private operators rolled out 3G service in October 2013.
If the 4G-enabled handset penetration ends up being the same five years after the rollout of the service, the industry would not have much prospect, Robi said at a discussion held at the InterContinental Hotel in Dhaka.
At present, about 20 percent of the handsets in use in Bangladesh are 4G-enabled.
The growth rate of 4G usage will gradually slow down if the 4G-enabled handset ownership is not increased. “Otherwise, we will not have much of a business case,” he added.
Robi asked the government to give some tax benefits for 4G-enabled handsets, at least for the time being, said Mahtab Uddin Ahmed, chief executive officer and managing director of Robi. “But that is yet to happen.”
The telecom industry had invested Tk 32,000 crore in total for 3G but the revenue from it was only Tk 7,000, he said. “3G is gradually becoming obsolete, so we need to start investing in 4G. But there are lots of challenges with it.”
One of the issues with 4G is the data speed.
“Without adequate spectrum operators cannot offer quality service,” he said, while calling for more spectrum allocation from the government.
At present, more than 50 percent of the spectrum available to the government is sitting unused, according to Ahmed. The operator, which is the second largest in the country, said it has taken an aggressive approach to make 4G successful and deployed a huge network.
Robi said the industry needs some time to consolidate the business of 4G, so a 5G rollout is not essential for the next few years.
The government is considering launch 5G service in 2021. About the mobile number portability service, Robi said users who have availed the facility are facing problems in getting text messages from banks, mobile financial service operators and other service providers because of integration problems.
“And that's why this service did not become as popular among customers as was expected.” The telecom regulator has introduced the service in October last year and in the first three months it found only 1.06 lakh takers.
In the last two decades Robi has invested $3.1 billion and can share dividend of $103 million, according to Ahmed.
The operator, which merged with Airtel in 2016, is expecting to become profitable from this year.
“If we can continue this way we will seriously consider listing with the Dhaka Stoke Exchange.”
