3G- 3rd Generation service in Bangladesh

Ericsson (ERICb.ST), the world’s biggest mobile network maker, called on Bangladesh on Wednesday to issue 3G licences so operators can launch mobile broadband services there.
Mobile broadband services, which require the licensing of the 2100 MHz spectrum band for third-generation (3G) services, would give many more people access to the Internet as Bangladesh has a high number of mobile phones and comparatively few fixed lines.

“If the government releases appropriate spectrum for 3G, which is the proven global mainstream for the mobile broadband, then we are confident that it will contribute significantly to the country’s GDP (gross domestic prodcut) growth,” Arun Bansal, managing director of the Ericsson Bangladesh, told a news confrence.

The mobile phone sector contributed 6.2 percent of Bangladesh’s GDP in 2007. Research firm Deloitte & Touche have estimated that mobile communication has raised GDP growth in Bangladesh by 0.12 percent for each 1 percent increase in penetration.

“It is estimated that there are over 6 million mobile internet users and already today 15 percent of the mobile handsets used in Bangladesh market are 3G enabled,” Bansal said.

Bangladesh’s mobile sector has grown rapidly, with the number of users reaching around 46 million at the end of March from 200,000 in 2001, compared with only 1.37 million fixed-line phones.

Analysts have predicted that by 2011 the number of mobile subscribers could top 70 million, which is nearly half the country’s population.

There are six cellphone carriers in Bangladesh, of which five are foreign operators. Grameenphone, controlled by Norway’s Telenor (TEL.OL) leads the market with 21 million subscribers followed by Egyptian Orascom Telecom’s (ORTE.CA) Banglalink.

Although nearly half of the country’s population is still below the poverty line, the country has been one of the world’s fastest growing cellular markets.

Telecom analysts have said that the 3G broadband services would enable people to get easy access to information on health, education, agriculture and job opportunities

About 3 G
3G is the third generation of telecommunication hardware standards and general technology for mobile networking, superseding 2.5G. It is based on the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) family of standards under the IMT-2000.[1]
3G networks enable network operators to offer users a wider range of more advanced services while achieving greater network capacity through improved spectral efficiency. Services include wide-area wireless voice telephone, video calls, and broadband wireless data, all in a mobile environment. Additional features also include HSPA data transmission capabilities able to deliver data rates up to 14.4 Mbit/s on the downlink and 5.8 Mbit/s on the uplink.
Unlike IEEE 802.11 networks, which are commonly called Wi-Fi or WLAN networks, 3G networks are wide-area cellular telephone networks that evolved to incorporate high-speed Internet access and video telephony. IEEE 802.11 networks are short range, high-bandwidth networks primarily developed for data