Internet Connection With Minimum 1 Mbps Speed Will Be Provided Across The Country: Joy

"My aim is to ensure internet connection in each union of the country with at least 1mbps speed," he said, in an introductory speech at the maiden meeting with stakeholders of internet service providers of the country at Ganabhaban.

Joy also said that the 1mbps internet connection will be given at a cheaper rate with better quality to fulfill the demands of his several lakh Facebook fans. "We're going ahead keeping that aim in mind. My goal is to implement this very soon," said the only son of the Prime Minister.

Talking about his personal experience in using internet in the country, Joy said he uses internet as many works can now be done through digital process. He said when he remained busy on tours he usually checks internet in different areas to get the real experience. "I've the experience that in various cases there are some hurdles for providing quality internet with desired speed in the country."

He said the purpose of his meeting with all ISP stakeholders is to figure out the problems in providing better internet service with minimum cost. "We want to find out the hurdles and we want to solve those. We'll solve the problems together through discussions and understanding. If needed, we'll change the policy."

The ICT adviser to the PM mentioned that the government is very sincere to remove all obstacles for the sake of providing quality internet service to the consumers for building the digital Bangladesh. He said: "We'll remove these hurdles, including price, and also change the system for ensuring quality of internet and provide the broadband services at union level."

Joy said a couple of years ago he made a request to the regulatory body to change the definition of broadband. Previously broadband meant at least 256 kbps. "But to me 256 kbps speed is no broadband at all. It should be at least 1mbps" He said that later, the telecom regulatory body changed the definition of the broadband and now 1mbps is the minimum speed for broadband in the country.

During the national election in 2008, the Awami League in its election manifesto declared to establish Bangladesh as a digital country. After winning the election, the AL-led alliance government had taken various steps to fulfill its election pledge.

One of the main features of Digital Bangladesh was to provide internet connection in the rural areas. The government in the last five years has established more than 4500 union information centres (UICs) across the country to connect the rural people in the information highway.

Aiming to provide computers with internet connection in each school of the country, the government so far established 25,000 computer labs and provided internet connection. Besides, the government has taken steps to provide internet connection with computer in 14,000 community clinics in the rural areas aiming to give better healthcare facilities. Bangladesh Telecommu-nication Company Limited (BTCL), a state-owned company, recently reduced the bandwidth price for end users by 41.67 percent to spread the internet services to the grassroots.

From April 1, the price was reduced to Tk 2,800 megabits per second (Mbps) from Tk 4,800 as approved at the BTCL board meeting recently. BTCL also reduced its dial-up (ADSL) charge to Tk 0.10/minute. Earlier, in April 2013, the government fixed the internet bandwidth price at Tk 4,800 per Mbps, after reducing 40 percent from the previous rate of Tk 8,000 per Mbps. The government slashed the bandwidth price five times after 2009 when it was Tk 27,000 per Mbps.