20 lakh new internet connections in August: BTRC

The number of internet users in the country grew by 19.60 lakh in August which is by far the highest in a single month in recent years, according to a report published by the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) today.

This incremental growth surprised industry insiders as two top mobile operators in the country -- Grameenphone and Robi -- have been under massive restrictions from the regulator’s side to realise their dues fixed by audit, the report said.

Since July the telecom regulator came hard on the two top players and restricted their network expansion, banned their new offers and new package approval.

They also cut the bandwidth allowance of Grameenphone by 30 percent and Robi by 15 percent in July.

However, that did not impact the acquisition of new customers, BTRC data shows.

Of the new addition, mobile operators’ contribution was 19.59 lakh and another one lakh came from fixed broadband segment.

With this, the total active internet connections in the country now stands at 9.81 crore, which is an all-time high, according to BTRC statistic.

Mobile phone-based connections contributed the highest to the tally with 9.24 crore users, followed by WiMAX with 40,000 users.

ISP and PSTN connections accounted for 57.35 lakh users.

The BTRC data also shows, the total active mobile connections stand at 16.26 crore, of which Grameenphone is leading with 7.56 crore, according to the official data.

Robi is in second position with 4.78 crore and Banglalink and Teletalk are at 3.48 crore and 43.87 lakh respectively, BTRC data reads.