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Evidently, the quality of internet service and connectivity in Bangladesh is one of the poorest in the world. But this is not an attempt at finding fault with the government without rhyme or reason. The prime minister's adviser on telecom and ICT, Rehan Asad, himself expressed such views about our internet service while speaking the other day at a seminar styled, 'New Telecom Policy: Expectations of Entrepreneurs' organised by the Telecom and Technology Reporters Network Bangladesh (TRNB). He actually viewed that Bangladesh's mobile and broadband internet services ranked among the worst in the world. According to the Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA), and the UN agency, the 'International Telecommunication Union (ITU)', in terms of broadband service quality, Bangladesh ranks 141st among 153 countries of the world. In South Asia, too, we are trailing even behind Nepal and Bhutan. Oddly enough, considering subscription coverage, Bangladesh is among the top 10 countries globally; but when it comes to service, we are among the bottom 10 countries. Small wonder that despite its poor quality, the highly taxed internet service is one of the costliest in the world. However, Mr Asad assured that the government had plans to address such issues by rapidly expanding mobile and broadband infrastructure and thereby connecting 90 per cent of the population with 5G and providing 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) internet to 90 per cent users. No doubt, the government's plan is well-intentioned, though rather ambitious, especially at a time when supply of power and energy to fulfil the government's dream project on internet service is facing the worst challenge in the history. The reason is the ongoing crisis in power generation due to acute shortage of fossil fuels, particularly natural gas and oils. Since the domestic natural gas supply is on the decline and the possibility of improving it is slim at least in the near future, the country will have to depend on imported fossil fuels-liquefied natural gas (LNG), oils and coal- indefinitely. Production of renewable energy is still at the rudimentary stage. But at the moment disruption in the energy supply chain has reached epic proportions, if only due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, the chief source of fossil fuels in this part of the world.
Even if it is assumed that the Middle Eastern crisis is not going to persist for eternity, still the magnitude of disruption and dislocation it would cause particularly in the countries dependent on energy import is going to be humongous. And it is exactly against this backdrop that the Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh (AMTOB), hardly a week back, in a letter to the telecom regulator, Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), called upon the authorities to act urgently to resolve the deepening electricity and fuel crisis and, unless addressed on a emergency basis, it (AMTOB) warned of an imminent nationwide telecom disruption. Especially, it raised serious concerns about the vulnerability of data centres as well as the wider digital economy. In fact, there are already reports of prolonged outages. In some cases, the power goes out for long five, even eight hours during natural calamities like storms, when the telecom operators are compelled to depend on diesel generators to keep their critical infrastructures running. In this connection, mobile operators informed that their 'base transceiver stations (BTS)' alone consume more than 52,000 litres of diesel and about 20,000 litres of octane in a day across operators. Notably, a BTS is a critical piece of networking equipment that enables wireless communication between mobile devices such as phones and a cellular network, typically used in 2G, 3G and 4G networks. Obviously, any shutdown of such critical infrastructures, the mobile operators warned, would disrupt country's emergency services including disaster response, financial transactions, law-enforcement coordination, digital governance and overall economic activities. So, one can easily imagine the cascading effects of data centres going offline in absence of the required fuel supply. For instance, such eventuality would result in widespread call drops, internet outages and service blackouts. One might recall here what happened during the more than two weeks' internet shutdown effected by the then-government in reaction to 2024's student-led July protests. The fallout of that nationwide communication blackout, an instance of wilful internet shutdown, disrupted financial transactions, normal business, education, in short, it impacted every sphere of life.
But here we are talking about a situation that is beyond the control of the government. So, how is the government going to meet the competing demands for fuels from power plants, the transport sector, industries and now the critical internet infrastructures given that the existing stock of fuel is limited and that the import of fuels is facing uncertainties due to the war? That brings us to the basic issue of setting priorities and planning any ambitious project accordingly. The basic condition for operating any industry is uninterrupted supply of power. The telecom sector is no exception. But over the years, the governments that came to power could not address this fundamental requirement of the industries, let alone public life, which is entirely dependent on a secure supply of power. But without a long-term planning to develop a secure and sustainable energy base, ambitious projects had from time to time been undertaken to impress the public at best and lining the pockets of those in power at worst. So, in the current situation, the government in office, has, to be fair, no shortcut answer to the worsening energy crisis facing the economy. What the government can do at best is prioritise the sectors of the economy in desperate need and allocate the energy in stock among them judiciously. And at the same time, pray that the warring parties in the Middle East settle for peace within a short time. But assuming that the present shock of global energy crunch is going to be over shortly, can we still expect that the incumbent government would be able to resolve the ongoing power crisis any time soon? Not in the least. While the government continues to meet emergencies through judicious allocation of resources, the long-term plan for securing a sound energy base should remain the top priority. And it is exactly on this sound energy base hinges the incumbent government's dream of creating what it would like to term ' AI-enabled Bangladesh'. Since AI is a power-guzzling technology, the government should set its priorities right to avoid jumping the gun.