A two-day long ICANN Outreach Program was held at the BTRC building in Agargaon of the capital of Bangladesh. On Sunday, in order to ensure digital economic prosperity, it was suggested to increase the use of .bangla domain. At the closing ceremony of ICANN the emergence of new companies in addition to the two company’s of the country in the expansion of GTLD, and to open the .bd domain to private organizations from home and abroad. The ceremony was presided over by the BTRC Chairman Engineer Mohiuddin Ahmed.
Director General of BTRC Brigadier General Kazi Mustafizur Rahman presented this proposal.
Joining the event virtually from Delhi, Sameeran Gupta, Leader of Government Affairs and Public Policy, ICANN, gave a presentation on the market, potential, security of domains. He said that till now there are 27 regional language based top level domains. After 2012, DNS has expanded to over 1,200 domains. Now domains are being created in the name of service, city etc. But it has challenges for non-English languages. We have identified it and brought it under University Exemption. By 2017 this resulted in a $10 billion market. Now this market is not less than 15 billion dollars.
State Minister for Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology Zunaid Ahmed Palak was present virtually as the chief guest in the event.
While speaking as the chief guest, the state minister said that the Bengali application developed by the ICT department has been opened for all, but there are 4 GTLDs in India but none in Bangladesh. Bangladesh also needs to start using it for wide spread of products and services. It is possible to benefit from the innovation process. This initiative can be taken in public-private way. The new GTLD will start in April 2026. That is why we have prepared to propose the names .bangla, .court, .Dhaka, .summit. We want to take a strong position in the domain industry.
Palak said that such instructions have been given to provide opportunity to recruit registrars from the private sector. Universal acceptance of Bengali language on the Internet should be done.
Besides, ICANN Director Sajid Rahman; BASIS Past President Syed Almas Kabir; Shamim Ahsan, Asia Pacific Top Level Domain Member Imran Hossen and others were present on the occasion.
BTRC Chairman Prof. Md. Mohiuddin Ahmed, while speaking as the President, said that compared to other countries in the world, Bangladesh has a good position in the progress of various indicators in the telecommunication sector. The country currently has 19.5 crore mobile SIM subscribers, over 14 crore internet subscribers and over 10 crore 4G subscribers. Besides, 6400 Gbps bandwidth is being used. Noting that there are only 41,000 .bd domain users, the BTRC chairman said, BTRC has issued a guideline related to the domain industry in January this year. He also commented that government officials need to use government email instead of using public email.
This outreach program was started on 11th and continued till 14th July as a joint initiative of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and Bangladesh Domain Industry.
In his welcome speech, Director General of Engineering and Operations Department of BTRC, Brigadier General Kazi Mustafizur Rahman, said that since 2010, BTRC has started regular communication with ICANN and since 2018, ICANN has been attending Government Advisory Committee (GAC) meetings. Pointing out that .bangla domain should be increased as a Country Top Level Domain (CTLD) to advance the domain sector, he said, suitable domestic organizations will be appointed registrars for management and promotion. He also informed that the ICANN Outreach Program has been initiated to maintain regular activities with ICANN and all stakeholders for infrastructure development in the domain industry.
Advisor of FBCCI Syed Almas Kabir welcomed the initiative to open dot bd (.bd) and dot bangla (.bangla) privately. He said, requested all concerned to facilitate the issue of cross border payment.
Imran Hossen, convenor of ICANN Outreach Program-2024, said that DNS sector is important for the growth of technology sector of Bangladesh. Advances in the DNS sector will keep domestic companies competitive in the global market. This sector will further expand if the domestic institutions receive services from their country’s domain hosting companies. He also commented that it is important to promote the growth of domestic companies, tax exemptions in this sector, facilitation of cross-border payments, increased investment in local DNS companies and promotion of domestic companies at the global level.
