September 08, 2007

Bangladesh cellphone network - a strength of the country

Last year I reported that:
India's Home Minister Shivraj Patil was shocked when he found mobile phones in the country's eastern frontiers functioning, courtesy of the sophisticated rural telephone network of Bangladesh instead of the Indian communications network coverage.
This year Bangladesh is moving ahead with GPRS/EDGE enabled mobile phone network making access to internet possible in rural areas with or without Pcs.

The Uncultured Project (by a Canadian expat) thinks that Bangladesh cellphone service is better than Canada:
I’m writing now from a rural village in Bangladesh (called Modiphur). There is no electricity, no running water, and the diesel generator that was powering a ceiling fan and light bulb died earlier this night. Bangladesh is still a third world country afterall. But, despite all this, I am still able to check my mail, see what’s going on at Digg, and post to this blog.

Bangladesh is one of the few countries in the world that can guarantee each one of its residents can get a cellphone signal - no matter where they are in the country. With a population of over 150 million (over four times Canada’s population) that’s pretty impressive. There are populated parts in the North in Canada that most cellphone service providers don’t bother putting up towers for. Not only can Bangladeshis send and receive calls from anywhere in the country - they can also surf the web on either an EDGE or GPRS network.

Canada, unlike Bangladesh, does not even offer an unlimited flat-rate EDGE/GPRS internet service. The gigabytes of data that I have used over the EDGE network here in Bangladesh has cost me only $20 a month.

0 comments:

Post a Comment