Internet in Bangladesh: Things are changing for the Best

I first used internet in 1997 in British Council Dhaka. At that time, it was too much expensive and for the next three years, I had limited opportunity to use internet. Another problem at the time was that internet connection was given through land phone. In Bangladesh, until four or five years ago, land phone was under the monopoly of state controlled BTTB and they had limited connection. Many middle class families like us could not get any land phone connection because BTTB did not have enough connections for ordinary people like us. The big breakthrough came at the end of 2001 and in 2002 cyber cafes were set up in large number in various part of Dhaka.

At one stage, within just two kilometer radius of my home, there were ten cyber cafes. Thus, it was good experience to use internet at a cheap price. The price was yet not affordable in cyber cafe. In 2003, fortunately, I could have an internet connection from a cyber cafe and for the first time in life I could enjoy unlimited use of internet from morning to night. The price was affordable.

From 2003 to 2009, I have spent a lot of money for internet connection and it helped me a lot in life. In this process, I could make my career shift and I became full time professional blogger. However, there was always serious problem that internet connection was very slow. For most of my life, I worked with 2 to 5 KBPS internet speed. In 2009, the big change came in Bangladesh with Wimax technology. I took a connection of QUBEE Wimax in October 2009 and it was a superb experience. For the first time in my life, I could see any YouTube video. I could get a download speed of 50 KBPS and it was amazing.

Now a days, we are hearing about the 3G technology. I think that 3G internet facility will come in Bangladesh in 2011 and then there will be advancement in internet speed.

Internet speed was a big problem for many years and I am happy that it has been solved at last in Bangladesh. Now, I hope that the problem of online transaction will also be solved very soon.