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Banglalink confirms its reign and wins the Download Speed Experience award for the fourth time in a row, making it the third outright consecutive victory (the operator shared this award with Grameenphone in our first report on Bangladesh). Our users on Banglalink’s network experienced average download speeds of 9.7 Mbps — 0.6 Mbps (7%) faster than in our previous report and 2.4-2.5 Mbps ahead of Grameenphone and Airtel, which are in a statistical tie for second place this time. Banglalink is very close to becoming the first Bangladeshi operator to score above the 10 Mbps threshold on the Download Speed Experience of our users.
Grameenphone and Banglalink compete fiercely for our Upload Speed Experience Award. Grameenphone won this award in our first Mobile Network Experience report for Bangladesh in February 2020, but Banglalink was victorious in the following report July 2020. Grameenphone reclaimed the award in our last report this time, both competitors share the award, as Banglalink forced a statistical tie with Grameenphone. The joint victory occurred due to our users on Banglalink’s network experiencing an increase of 0.3 Mbps (8.3%) in average upload speeds, while those on Grameenphone’s network saw a dip of 0.5 Mbps (12.4%).
For the third consecutive time, Banglalink claims all three of our mobile experiential awards — Video, Games and Voice App Experience. Noteworthy, this is also the fourth time that the operator has won the Voice App Experience award. Banglalink is the only operator in Bangladesh that rated Good (55-65) for the video streaming services experienced by our users.The videos tested for Opensignal’s Video Experience metric include a mixture of resolutions and are streamed directly from the world’s largest video content providers.
In our previous report, Airtel and Robi were in a statistical tie for the 4G Availability award. This time, we saw a three-way statistical tie, as both previously victorious operators were joined by Grameenphone. Our 4G Availability metric shows the proportion of time users with a 4G device and subscription have a 4G connection, which means our 4G users in Bangladesh were, on average, connected to 4G services on their networks 75.2-80.6% of the time.
With a score of 7.2 points (on a 10-point scale), Grameenphone wins the 4G Coverage Experience award for the fourth time in a row — and for the third consecutive time, it has done so outright. Grameenphone comes ahead of Airtel and Robi, which are in a statistical tie for second place. All operators saw 0.2-0.3 increases in their scores — slightly lower than the increases of 0.6-0.8 points we saw in our previous report. Opensignal’s 4G Coverage Experience metric is a measure of how mobile subscribers experience 4G coverage on an operator’s network. It analyzes the locations where customers of a network operator received a 4G signal relative to the locations visited by users of all network operators.
For the third time in a row, Banglalink dominates Opensignal’s experiential categories and outright claims the Video, Games and Voice App Experience awards. It also proves its leadership in our speed categories. Banglalink wins the Download Speed Experience award, just shy of the 10 Mbps milestone, and forced a statistical tie with Grameenphone to share the Upload Speed Experience award. Grameenphone forced a statistical tie with Airtel and Robi for the 4G Availability award, while keeping hold of the 4G Coverage Experience award.
Banglalink, Grameenphone and Robi paid US$898.2 million in total for the combined 4G spectrum of 7.4 MHz in the 1800 MHz band and 20 MHz in the 2100 MHz band in the auction organized by the Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BRTC) in March 2021. This enabled the mobile operators to expand their limited 4G holdings and embrace the challenges of the increased demand for mobile data services — and should help boost the mobile network experience of Bangladesh’s users in future because of the greater wireless capacity available. Insufficient amount of affordable spectrum assigned to mobile services has been one of key roadblocks for proper 4G take off in Bangladesh. Aside from spectrum, other important barriers for 4G adoption in Bangladesh include: taxation policy that may be hampering further investment in infrastructure, limited affordability of 4G devices and inflexible licensing rules that make it difficult for operators to easily upgrade their networks.
In this report, we examined the mobile network experience of our users on the four nationwide mobile network operators in Bangladesh — Airtel, Banglalink, Grameenphone and Robi — over a period of 90 days beginning April 1, 2021, and ending June 29, 2021, to see how they fared.
| Mobile Experience Awards Bangladesh | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
July 2021,
Bangladesh Report
|
A
Airtel
|
B
Banglalink
|
G
Grameenphone
|
R
Robi
|
Video Experience
| ||||
Games Experience
| ||||
Voice App Experience
| ||||
Download Speed Experience
| ||||
Upload Speed Experience
| ||||
4G Availability
| ||||
4G Coverage Experience
| ||||
|
Mobile Experience Awards Winners
|
July 2021,
Bangladesh
|
|---|---|
|
Video Experience
|
B
Banglalink
|
|
Games Experience
|
B
Banglalink
|
|
Voice App Experience
|
B
Banglalink
|
|
Download Speed Experience
|
B
Banglalink
|
|
4G Coverage Experience
|
G
Grameenphone
|
|
Mobile Experience Awards Draws
|
July 2021, Bangladesh
|
|---|---|
|
Upload Speed Experience
|
B
Banglalink
G
Grameenphone
|
|
4G Availability
|
A
Airtel
G
Grameenphone
R
Robi
|
|
Video Experience
Additional Metrics |
A
Airtel
|
B
Banglalink
|
G
Grameenphone
|
R
Robi
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | ||||
|
4G Video Experience
| 55.2 (± 2.10) | 65.4 (± 2.17) | 54.5 (± 2.63) | 51.8 (± 2.01) |
|
3G Video Experience
| 43.8 (± 5.03) | 43.2 (± 4.51) | 35.5 (± 4.98) | 34.1 (± 4.10) |
| 4G Video Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
A
Airtel
|
55 (± 2.10) |
|
B
Banglalink
|
65 (± 2.17) |
|
G
Grameenphone
|
54 (± 2.63) |
|
R
Robi
|
52 (± 2.01) |
| 3G Video Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
A
Airtel
|
44 (± 5.03) |
|
B
Banglalink
|
43 (± 4.51) |
|
G
Grameenphone
|
36 (± 4.98) |
|
R
Robi
|
34 (± 4.10) |
|
Games Experience
Additional Metrics |
A
Airtel
|
B
Banglalink
|
G
Grameenphone
|
R
Robi
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | ||||
|
4G Games Experience
| 39.2 (± 1.28) | 47.1 (± 2.66) | 38.5 (± 0.79) | 37.5 (± 0.95) |
|
3G Games Experience
| 32.9 (± 0.94) | 34.3 (± 0.61) | 31.1 (± 0.53) | 33.0 (± 0.73) |
| 4G Games Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
A
Airtel
|
39 (± 1.28) |
|
B
Banglalink
|
47 (± 2.66) |
|
G
Grameenphone
|
38 (± 0.79) |
|
R
Robi
|
38 (± 0.95) |
| 3G Games Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
A
Airtel
|
33 (± 0.94) |
|
B
Banglalink
|
34 (± 0.61) |
|
G
Grameenphone
|
31 (± 0.53) |
|
R
Robi
|
33 (± 0.73) |
|
Voice App Experience
Additional Metrics |
A
Airtel
|
B
Banglalink
|
G
Grameenphone
|
R
Robi
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | ||||
|
4G Voice App Experience
| 69.9 (± 1.22) | 73.9 (± 1.18) | 68.8 (± 0.84) | 67.3 (± 1.25) |
|
3G Voice App Experience
| 62.5 (± 2.80) | 66.0 (± 2.21) | 57.9 (± 1.90) | 59.5 (± 2.30) |
| 4G Voice App Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
A
Airtel
|
70 (± 1.22) |
|
B
Banglalink
|
74 (± 1.18) |
|
G
Grameenphone
|
69 (± 0.84) |
|
R
Robi
|
67 (± 1.25) |
| 3G Voice App Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
A
Airtel
|
62 (± 2.80) |
|
B
Banglalink
|
66 (± 2.21) |
|
G
Grameenphone
|
58 (± 1.90) |
|
R
Robi
|
60 (± 2.30) |
|
Download Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
A
Airtel
|
B
Banglalink
|
G
Grameenphone
|
R
Robi
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | ||||
|
4G Download Speed
| 8.5 (± 0.44) | 13.0 (± 0.54) | 8.9 (± 0.25) | 6.9 (± 0.35) |
|
3G Download Speed
| 4.8 (± 0.33) | 4.7 (± 0.29) | 4.2 (± 0.22) | 3.4 (± 0.21) |
| 4G Download Speed | in Mbps |
|
A
Airtel
|
8 (± 0.44) |
|
B
Banglalink
|
13 (± 0.54) |
|
G
Grameenphone
|
9 (± 0.25) |
|
R
Robi
|
7 (± 0.35) |
| 3G Download Speed | in Mbps |
|
A
Airtel
|
5 (± 0.33) |
|
B
Banglalink
|
5 (± 0.29) |
|
G
Grameenphone
|
4 (± 0.22) |
|
R
Robi
|
3 (± 0.21) |
|
Upload Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
A
Airtel
|
B
Banglalink
|
G
Grameenphone
|
R
Robi
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | ||||
|
4G Upload Speed
| 4.0 (± 0.23) | 4.9 (± 0.24) | 4.4 (± 0.14) | 3.8 (± 0.18) |
|
3G Upload Speed
| 1.0 (± 0.10) | 1.0 (± 0.08) | 1.0 (± 0.08) | 0.8 (± 0.07) |
| 4G Upload Speed | in Mbps |
|
A
Airtel
|
4 (± 0.23) |
|
B
Banglalink
|
5 (± 0.24) |
|
G
Grameenphone
|
4 (± 0.14) |
|
R
Robi
|
4 (± 0.18) |
| 3G Upload Speed | in Mbps |
|
A
Airtel
|
1 (± 0.10) |
|
B
Banglalink
|
1 (± 0.08) |
|
G
Grameenphone
|
1 (± 0.08) |
|
R
Robi
|
1 (± 0.07) |
Collecting billions of individual measurements daily from over 100 million devices globally, Opensignal independently analyzes mobile user experience on every major network operator around the globe.
Opensignal is the mobile analytics company committed to improving mobile connectivity across the globe. We are the independent authority for understanding the true experience consumers receive on wireless networks.
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