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Bangladesh telecom profile

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Abu Saeed Khan
***Another ITU event, actually the biggest of all, Telecom World 2003 will be held in Geneva, Switzerland from October 12 through October 18. This quadrennial event is also known as Telecom Olympics. This year the ITU is assembling the male and female youths from all over the world to experience this telecom extravaganza. But our government has not nominated any youth this time either. Rather using the public funds, hoards of obsolete officials are going to Geneva. Bon voyage.***
Bangladesh is the only Saarc country having less than one teledensity (telephone for every 100 citizens). Such lowest telephone penetration further disgraces our telecom profile with the slowest annual growth rate in this region.
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has published Asia Pacific Telecom Indicators 2002. From 1981 through 2001, the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of each Saarc country along with respective teledensity has been presented, as shown in the graph.
It is notable that Bangladesh and Nepal had same teledensity in 1981. But this Himalayan Kingdom quadrupled its teledensity by 1991 while we were happy with doubling ours at that time. Nepal achieved more than 300 per cent teledensity growth as well as exceeded the single digit mark by 2001.
We were still boasting with a merely doubled penetration at the dawn of this millennium. Teledensity wise, Bangladesh ranks 38th among the 40 countries of Asia Pacific region. Afghanistan and Cambodia are fast chasing us. Remember the rabbit and turtle's story? All we need is a bit more sleep.
The ITU's quadrennial plenipotentiary conference elects the members of its Radio Regulations Board (RRB) for a four-year term. RRB is a part-time body comprising 12 members from the Americas (2 members), Western Europe (2 members), Eastern Europe (2 members), Africa (3 members), Asia and Australasia (3 members).
Last plenipotentiary was held in Marrakech of Morocco from september 23 through October 18 of 2002. sATM Badrul Haque, BTTB's chairman, contested in the RRB election on behalf of Bangladesh. Ravindra Agarwal of India got 117 votes, the highest in this region. south Korean Ki-soo Lee received 88 votes. Akhtar Ahmad Bajwa of Pakistan bagged 85 votes, narrowly defeating Bruce Emirali of New Zealand by only three votes! sATM Badrul Haque of BTTB managed only 36 votes in his favour.
such humiliating defeat of Bangladesh is attributed to the inaction of our foreign ministry, which is duty bound to do necessary campaign for the candidate. Exactly that's what the foreign offices of India and Pakistan had been doing to promote their contestants in this prestigious global telecom body. It is more embarrassing for Bangladesh, as our foreign minister had been the chairman of country's first cellphone company, until he joined the public office. Ministers do not become forthcoming, unless there is something tangible.
Take the example of ITU's biannual Telecom Asia 2002. Nearly 100
male and female students from more than 40 countries of the Asia and Middle East attended this event. These university students have been nominated by their governments and the ITU have arranged their entire trip. These future science and engineering graduates had experienced the marvels of telecom industry in this dazzling telecom event.
Moe Moe Aye and Tay Zar Aung Lwin came from Yangon Technological University of Myanmar. sangya Amatya and shailendra Josi came from Kathmandu University. sonam Dem and Tsewang Dorji from Royal Bhutan Polytechnic attended this event. Theany Ngin and sorphalla sean came from the Institute of Technology of Cambodia. They are all bright, bubbling with ideas and hungry for knowledge.
Ayesha Khan Rouf and Qazi Rashid Hamid of Peshawar University were highly excited to meet me in Telecom Asia2002. But both of them politely asked why the youths of Bangladesh were not attending this event. A fog of sadness crawled in my mind. But it turned in to anger when a competent source said that the telecom minister could not find any progovernment "scholar" to nominate for attending the ITU's event. Therefore, the government did not nominate any youth to attend Telecom Asia in December 2002.
Another ITU event, actually the biggest of all, Telecom World 2003 will be held in Geneva, switzerland from October 12 through October 18. This quadrennial event is also known as Telecom Olympics. This year the ITU is assembling the male and female youths from all over the world to experience this telecom extravaganza. But our government has not nominated any youth this time either. Rather using the public funds, hoards of obsolete officials are going to Geneva. Bon voyage. The writer is a telecom analyst