Teletalk to conduct 5G trial run within Dec: MD

State-owned telecom operator Teletalk will conduct 5G trial runs in Dhaka city within December 12 this year, its Managing Director Md Shahab Uddin told The Business Post on Tuesday.

“We will conduct the initial test run in Dhaka city. But since we lack infrastructure, we will request the Nationwide Telecommunication Transmission Networks to supply optical fibre cables that can support high bandwidth,” he said.

5G, the superfast fifth generation mobile internet services, offer faster data download and upload speeds. Currently, the fastest 4G mobile networks offer about 45Mbps on average but chipmaker Qualcomm says 5G could achieve browsing and download speeds about 10 to 20 times faster in real-world conditions.

Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) recently decided to allocate a 60MHz spectrum in the 3.5GHz band for Teletalk to launch 5G services on trial.

There are more than 35,000 mobile towers, over 37,000 2G sites, 34,000 3G sites and 25,000 4G sites in Bangladesh, according to the Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh. The country’s mobile operators had 176.41 million subscribers until Aug 20 this year. Of them, 120.95 million are internet users.

Posts and Telecommunications Minister Mustafa Jabbar told The Business Post that BTRC decided to give conditional spectrum allocation to Teletalk at its 254th commission meeting.

Prime Minister’s ICT Adviser Sajeeb Wazed instructed BTRC to allocate 40-60MHz for Teletalk at a June 2 meeting in Dhaka. Later, the BTRC’s spectrum division decided to give Teletalk a conditional 60MHz based on a refund, according to meeting minutes.

After the meeting, when BTRC formally asked Teletalk to apply, the mobile operator sought a 100MHz allocation in the 3.5 GHz band on August 17. The commission decided to allocate 60MHz as Teletalk did not provide necessary documents, network planning and relevant matters.

“Teletalk will initially launch 5G service at five important sites in the capital city. Later, they will be expanded to 200 Dhaka-centric sites under a small project,” Minister Jabbar said.