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October 26, 2009
Bangladesh's mobile
penetration rate stood at 28
percent in 2008 lagging behind
war ravaged Afghanistan's 29
percent in South Asia,
according to a regional report.
"Of course, the fact that
Afghanistan is ahead of
Bangladesh in mobile
penetration should cause all
sorts of palpitations in
government offices in Dhaka,"
said the report tilted
'Telecom Access Rankings in
South Asia'.
LIRNEasia posted the report
Saturday on its website based
on statistics of UN
International
Telecommunication Union.
LIRNEasia is an ICT policy and
regulation think tank active
across Asia Pacific.
Bangladesh was one of the
earliest in South Asia to
adopt mobile and is one of the
most densely populated
countries in the world.
"How the country was overtaken
by Afghanistan, a war torn
country with difficult
terrain, should cause serious
re examination of policies
such as the Tk 800 SIM
(subscriber identity module)
tax," the report said.
Pakistan's surge to overtake
Sri Lanka has petered out,
leaving the Maldives (143
active SIMs/100 people) as the
undisputed leader in mobile
connectivity and Sri Lanka
second with 52 SIMs per 100
people.
Both Pakistan (50/100) and
Bhutan (37/100) are ahead of
India (29/100) in mobile.
"This shows that India cannot
afford to let up the pace of
10 million connections a month
for some time. If it does, it
might be overtaken by
Afghanistan (29/100) and even
Bangladesh (28/100)," the
report said.
On the fixed side, assisted by
CDMA (code division multiple
access) phones that are
counted as fixed, Sri Lanka is
the leader (17 connections per
100 people), followed by the
Maldives (15 per 100).
In the fixed ranking,
Afghanistan is occupying the
cellar (0.37/100 people)
behind Bangladesh (0.84/100),
while Pakistan (2.5/100) is
behind Nepal (2.8/100).
India is the only country
showing negative growth (-2
percent) in fixed side over
the 2003-2008 period.
From 2003 to 2008, the number
of active SIMs has increased
by over 12 times, while the
number of fixed connections
has decreased marginally.
The negative growth in India
is wiping out all the gains in
the rest of South Asia.
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