Bangladesh is lagging behind in terms of making progress in the information and communication technology sector, according to a report published by the International Telecommunication Union.
The country scored 62.00 points in the recently published 鈥業CT Development Index 2024鈥� by the specialised agency of the United Nations, while the average score for the lower middle-income countries was 64.80.
The index reviewed the progress of ICT services in 170 countries of the world, including Bangladesh, based on data collected in 2022.
The global average score for the ICT sectors progress in this year鈥檚 index is 74.80.
The IDI Index primarily focused on two things, universal connectivity and meaningful connectivity.
While Bangladesh scored well in the meaningful connectivity section, with 84.50 points, it showed disappointing performance in universal connectivity section, with 39.40 points.
The index defined universal and meaningful connectivity (UMC) as the possibility for everyone to enjoy a safe, satisfying, enriching and productive online experience at an affordable cost.
The meaningful connectivity pillar is dominated by infrastructure indicators, where it is arguably easier to achieve high scores.
The universal connectivity pillar, by contrast, depends more on adoption by consumers.
The report showed that Bangladesh made a little progress than the previous year.
The country scored 61.10 points in the IDI 2023 index.
BM Mainul Hossain, director of the Institute of Information Technology at the University of Dhaka, told 抖阴精品 that the country鈥檚 connectivity infrastructure might have improved, but the number of smart phone users had not increased much.
鈥榃e will soon graduate from the LDC status, but strategies regarding connectivity have not yet reached to that standard. Investing in infrastructures is good, but until the number of smart phone users and digital literacy increase in the country, it will not bear much advantage,鈥� he said.
According to the index, only Pakistan stayed behind Bangladesh in terms of progress in the ICT sector.
The other neighbouring countries on the list, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Vietnam and Bhutan scored 63.80 points, 71.30 points, 81.50 points, 85 points and 85.90 points respectively, according to the IDI 2024 index.
Among the 10 indicators of the index, the internet usage rate of individuals in Bangladesh is 38.90 per cent and 38.10 per cent of households has internet access.
It was the same in the previous index. That is, according to the report, internet users in Bangladesh have not increased.
According to the index, mobile broadband internet traffic per mobile broadband subscription in the country was 78.70 GB in 2022, and fixed broadband internet traffic per fixed broadband subscription was 1,195.50 GB.
It mentioned that 61.80 per cent of individuals owned a mobile phone in the country in 2022.
