The first Corona case was found in Bangladesh on 8 March, 2020. In order to control the situation, the government declared ‘Lock down’. People started staying home, works went on in a ‘home office’ basis on a limited scale, where the internet appeared as the main catalyst.
Since then, in spite of the trend of a home office, online meeting, webinar, and so on; the number of internet users was not indeed increased rather decreased as the statistics found analyzing data supplied by BTRC.
The total number of internet users at the end of March 2020 was 10 crores 32 lakh 53 thousand, which turned into 11 crores 27 lakh 15 thousand at the end of February this year.
While tackling the pandemic situation online, in the last 11 months, the number of internet users increased by 94 lakh, 62 thousand which is less than the pre-pandemic period.
The increasing rate of internet users was 9.19 percent during the period of March 2018 to March 2019, whereas, the rate was 9.93 percent during the period of March 2019 to March 2020. This is little more than the previous year, but the rate of increasing the number of internet users came as less as 8.39 percent in comparison to the period of March ’20 to February ’21. In spite of increasing the number of internet users during the pandemic, the increasing rate has decreased indeed.
While analyzing data of BTRC, it is found that the increasing rate of mobile internet was 8.26 percent from March 2019 to March 2020 which came down at 7.78 till February 2021.
The trend is found the same for the subscribers of ISP and PSTN. The rate was 1.08 percent more in 2019 than in 2018. The rate increased to 29.11 percent at the end of March 2020. Comparing with the increasing rate of last 2 years, the rate during pandemic came as low as 15.1 percent; which is 14 percent less than the previous year.
“…Although, the rate of internet users did not increase in the same rate but the use of bandwidth has been increased”, commented Mustafa Jabbar, Post and Telecommunication Minister while inquired by DG Bangla.
He also agreed on the point that the quality of mobile internet service is not improving though the number of mobile internet users is more; the minister hopes that, the operators just have bought added spectrum, they are extending 4G services, so, the situation will improve shortly.
M. A. Hakim, President, Internet Service Providers Association of Bangladesh (ISPAB)considered the matter of decreasing the rate of the number of subscribers of PSTN and ISP during the pandemic situation as normal.
