Bangladesh's internet speed has improved dramatically in a year as the country has notched up the top rank in South Asia, according to a new global study.
The rankings of India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka were 129, 128 and 170 respectively, said the study conducted by Ookla Net Index.
Globally, the country secured the 99th spot by beating countries like India and Malaysia, and was unveiled in April. Last year, the country secured 138th position in its Household Download Index (HDI).
Ookola is considered to be a global leader in broadband speed testing and web-based network diagnostic applications.
Local IT industry people said the gradual increase in internet users following cost reduction, expansion of bandwidth business both by public and private companies, an increase in mobile internet users are contributing to the rise net speed.
The index shows Bangladesh has escalated 39 steps this year in internet speed by beating countries like India, Malaysia, Argentina and South Africa.
Ookla prepared its report based on millions of recent test results from 'Ookla Speedtest', this index compares and ranks consumer download speeds around the globe.
The value is the rolling mean speed in Mbps (megabyte per second) over the past 30 days.
The index defined the position of download and upload on computer, laptop, tablet, and mobile. It also considers service quality, value and promise.
The Ookla index showed average global download speed is 23.2 Mbps, which is 10.23 Mbps in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh is ahead in uploading compared to that of the global average.
Bangladesh's upload speed has been recorded at 12.0 Mbps in April, 2015 against the global speed of 10.7 Mbps.
Countries like Malaysia and Argentina were also behind Bangladesh as their positions were 127 and 142 respectively in the month.
However, Singapore placed top position in the ranking with its 119.48 Mbps speed, followed by Chinese Hong Kong (101.22 Mbps).
ASM Asaduzzaman Asad, chief executive officer of Spinoff Studio, a 'software-game technology' provider, told the FE that the decreasing cost of internet use and the concomitant rise in internet users have helped push up internet speed.
He said internet bandwidth price has been falling significantly since connecting to the SEA-ME-WE 4 cable in 2006 by the country.
He said per Mbps (megabits per second) price was Tk35, 000 two years back, which came down to Tk 5,000 now.
He said the mobile operators' competitive prices have played an 'important' role in boosting internet users as 90 per cent of internet users are connected with mobile phone.
Secretary of Internet Service Providers of Bangladesh Md Emdadul Hoque said the country's internet users has been increasing since 2008 when the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission slashed wholesale internet bandwidth prices from Tk80,000 per Mbps to BDT 24,000 per Mbps.
He said the ISPs now buy per Mbps at Tk3,800 excluding VAT) from submarine cable.
"Internet users are now 50 million in the country, which was less than 5.0 million in 2008," said Mr Hoque, also director of Optimax Communication Ltd, an internet operator.
He said some 100 big ISPs in the county have 2.5 million fixed internet connections, of which 75 per cent are mobile internet users.
He also said that internet cost is much lower for those who use bandwidth of International Terrestrial Cable (ITC) companies.
He said six companies in the country have got ITC licences so far.
He noted that wholesale bandwidth price of ITCs is Tk1,200-1,500 per Mbps, which has also been helping to increase of internet users.
Six ITC operators' bandwidth capacity is around 50 Gbps (gigabit per second) and they are utilising the optimum of their capacity.
Earlier, the state run Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Ltd was the vendor of the bandwidth which has 200 Gbps capacity due to use of SEA-ME-WE-4.
Novocom Limited, 1ASIA-AHL JV, Fiber@Home Ltd, Summit Communications Ltd, BD Link Communication Ltd and Mango Teleservices Ltd are ITC licence-holding companies in the country.
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