Bandwidth price drops by 41pc per MBPS
The price of Bandwidth has been trimmed by 41 per cent Dhaka, Chittagong and Coxs Bazar effective from today.
Monwar Hossain, managing director of Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL), has told The Independent yesterday.
Now the internet gateways will pay Tk 625 instead of Tk 1,068 for 1 MBPS bandwidth, and the price will be effective from September 1, said Hossain.
He said the reduced prices would be applicable for 10 GBPS (Gigabyte Per Second) slab. But, it is up to the International internet gateways (IIGS) and internet service providers (ISPs) to cut price at the end users level, added Hossain.
The major buyers of the bandwidth are mobile phone operators, PSTN, WiMax operators and ISP. However, it will not bring down the cost at user level, said IT specialist Mustafa Jabbar.
Internet users are gradually seeing the effect of declining price of bandwidth, claims Bangladesh Tele-communication Regulatory Commission (BTRC).
At present it costs Tk 125 to buy 1Gbps internet data. In 2008, people had to spend Tk 27,000 to buy 1GBPS data, which is now available at Tk 2,800, a 90 per cent reduction in price. Also data price has been reduced by 30 per cent during last 1 year, BTRC secretary Sarwar Alam told The Independent.
The process is going on to make price even lower at subscribers level, Alam added.
After getting directive from the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to provide internet at affordable price, on Friday BTRC claimed that people are getting easy access to internet at low cost.
Although the price of bandwidth has declined, service providers are not lowering the cost at subscribers level, said a BTRC official.
Subarna, a resident of DOHS, Baridhara, said she has to spend Tk 1200 at if she uses ISP line with the speed of 512 Kbps and Tk 1,500 in case of dedicated line though the state owned BTCL telecom company offer unlimited data using with the same speed at only Tk 750 and 512 Kbps at Tk 450.
In other areas of the capital users can get line at Tk 500 with low speed which sparks dissatisfactions.
BTRC said it is documented after analyzing various data that average price of per Gbps data of the state-run mobile operator Teletalk has declined by 50 per cent within a year.
According to BTRC statistics, users of mobile internet have increased by 10.48 million in a year until June this year to 48.34 million.
Some 97 per cent internet subscribers were using mobile internet, it said.
