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Experts on Monday opined that mobile internet pricing should be regulated so that more people could use it and more foreign tech companies, such as Google and Facebook, established offices in Bangladesh.

They made the remarks during a roundtable titled ‘Leveraging Telecommunication Power for Escalating Digital Services in Bangladesh’, organised by the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission at its Agargaon office in the capital Dhaka on the day.

BTRC chairman Emdad Ul Bari highlighted the pressing need for collaboration across regulatory bodies. ‘Bangladesh is lagging due to a lack of coordination. We are trying to find the gaps,’ he remarked.

He said, ‘Mobile financial services, for instance, were handled by the Bangladesh Bank, but they also operate with telecoms and tech companies. We need joint regulation to move forward.’

He said that the BTRC’s primary focus was to ensure competition, not just revenue collection.

The discussion also focused on making internet data accessible and affordable for all.

‘Data should be as cheap as water,’ said the BTRC chairman.

Addressing the critical role of data in digital economy, Chaldal chief executive officer Wasim Alim stated, ‘Considering the GDP level, internet cost is very high in the country.’

‘There are many long term policies to consider. However, as an experiment, we could introduce a package of 2GB internet for Tk 10 per month, which would put us in the map,’ he said.

‘We could be adding 20 billion dollars of value to the Bangladesh economy by reducing the cost of data,’ he added.

Fahim Ahmed, CEO of Pathao Banlgadesh, said that previous shutdowns of platforms like Facebook significantly impacted small entrepreneurs.

‘During the last internet shutdown, merchants lost about Tk 750 crore,’ he recalled, emphasising that data protection and localisation were vital for the business continuity.

Fahim Mashroor, founder of Bdjobs, said that mobile internet pricing must be regulated, similar to broadband, and suggested reconsidering the BTRC’s revenue share and social obligation fund policies.

Social obligation fund or SOF is a contributory funding system. Telecommunication entities contribute to this fund.

Daraz Bangladesh chief regulatory affairs officer AHM Hasinul Quddus said, ‘Digital services are the future and internet access needs to be simplified for small and medium enterprises.’