While most of the south Asian countries have already launched 4G LTE service, Bangladesh is all geared to launch 4G service very soon. With the introduction of technology neutrality spectrum by Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), the telecom operators have already put the network in place. As the operators have started upgrading the SIM cards to USIM, the 4G service will be available any time to the customers.

Three major Bangladeshi telecom operators: Namely Grameen Phone, Robi and Banglalink have already tested 4G in their network with existing partners. Test reports has shown very fast 4G speed, around 50 Mbps to 100 Mbps from a single cell. Internal employees of the telcos have already been using 4G and helped them to optimize for better results.

As the 4G requires a new SIM card called U-SIM, the operators have started offering SIM card upgrade at Tk. 100.

4G frequency band in Bangladesh

Regarding the 4G frequency band, operators have demanded for all cellular radio spectrum to be technology neutral. BTRC already made 2100 MHz a technology neutrality band, previously used for 3G technology only. Now, this spectrum band is also used by operators for 4G LTE service. Similarly, the frequency bands for 2G, 900 MHz and 1800 MHz can also be used for 4G LTE. Among which, 1800 MHz (band 3) is the most popular 4G frequency band in the whole world. The smartphone availability in this band is also quite high. So, most probably Bangladeshi operators will also use 1800 MHz band for 4G LTE. Here is a table for the frequency bands for mobile technologies (2G, 3G, 4G) in Bangladesh.