Wimax broadband internet service providers losing subscribers

Country`s Wimax broadband internet service providing companies are witnessing continuous drop in their subscriber base for the last one year.  

The companies have lost some 213.423 thousand subscribers from June last to May this year.  

Wimax broadband subscribers were 504.808 thousand in June 2013 which came down to 291.808 thousand in May this year, according to the data of the telecom regulator.

Industry insiders expressed the view that the companies are losing their subscriber base to mobile internet, especially to the 3G mobile broadband internet.

Besides, they think the Wimax operators could not retain their subscribers for not offering attractive price or service when 3G came in the market. On the other hand the mobile phone operators conducted aggressive marketing and attracted the new customers to avail their service.  

The two operators -Banglalion and Qubee- are mainly providing the broadband internet service using WiMAX technology since 2009. Another new operator --The Bangladesh Internet Exchange Ltd (BIEL), brand name Ollo - recently started providing the service. The operator's subscriber base will be around 25 thousand, sources said.

However, mobile internet users - both 2G and 3G-- stood at around 38 million till May this year.

The top officials of the two Wimax operators earlier admitted that their service faced a ssetback due to 3G service, but they are planning to compensate the loss by aggressive marketing after launching LTE or Long Term Evolution.   

It may be mentioned that according to the Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) guideline, the Wimax operators -Banglalion and Qubee- were supposed to reach their coverage to 64 districts including upazilas and villages in phases within five years of licence issuance.  

But, the operators that achieved licence in 2008 have fulfilled their rollout obligation a little bit, even they could not comply with the target of achieving subscriber base of 0.5 million each within five years, sources said.