Thousands of enthusiastic visitors experienced different digital services using fifth generation (5G) mobile technology in the country’s first public demonstration of the superfast wireless internet.
The first day of Digital Bangladesh Mela 2020 saw the gathering of mostly students at Bangabandhu International Conference Center centring the 5G demonstrations organised by global technology giant Huawei.
People used hand gestures to make a robot play football, played a virtual reality skiing game and downloaded content at speeds of up to 1.6 Gbps using 5G technology.
Earlier in the morning Prime Minister’s ICT Affairs Adviser Sajeeb Wazed Joy inaugurated the three-day exposition.
Nirab Mahmood, a second-year computer science and engineering student at Shaikh Burhanuddin Post Graduate College, was in wonder with the experience.
“The speed is really unimaginable. This was so fast and I did not feel any glitches in the VR game,” he added.
Zahidul Islam, a student of Daffodil International University, came from Mohammadpur with his 11-year-old nephew. “My nephew is very fond of robots. I brought him here as it is the first time we are seeing such kind of experience with robots in the country,” he said.
The demonstration was to make people aware about the latest technology and its possible use in productive and manufacturing sectors, said SM Nazmul Hasan, marketing director of Huawei Technologies Bangladesh.
“We are showcasing a humanoid robot playing a soccer game, but we don’t need 5G for that. But imagine in a factory warehouse if hundreds of robots are working, we will need 5G for smooth operations. The VR technology is not new also, but with 5G experience we can ensure cloud-based real-time storage,” he said.
The government is scheduled to launch 5G internet by early 2021. Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission is planning to hold the 5G spectrum auction at the end of 2020.
Visitors at the fair also queued up in front of the stall of state-run mobile phone operator Teletalk to avail free SIMs.
At the fair, Bangladeshi broadband internet service provider (ISP) BDCOM Online offered broadband internet connectivity with a community-based concept at Tk 300 per month.
A total of 82 firms, including ISPs, are showcasing broadband internet, triple play technology (land phone, internet and cable TV connection in a single cable), mobile apps, parental control and other technologies.
Joy said the ICT export earnings would “within a short time” exceed that of readymade garments (RMG), currently the highest foreign currency earner.
“Today on record officially, Bangladesh’s IT export exceeded $1 billion…I believe within a very short time we will cross our garments export through technology export,” new agency BSS quoted him as saying. Joy, however, said it was difficult to assess the actual volume of ICT exports.
“(But) we believe that there is at least another one or two billion US dollars in export that is happening through the internet that is not being tracked,” he said.
Joy added that the scenario reflected that the ICT sector was very well on its way to catch the garments industry as Bangladesh was exporting hardware as well, including mobile phones, televisions and smart devices and “the exports were growing very rapidly and exponentially”.
The PM’s adviser said some of the progresses in the sector could not have been imagined even a decade ago when Bangladesh used to import all its mobile phones.
He said once upon a time “we used to import 30 million mobile phones in a year (while) today 20 million of those mobile phones are produced in Bangladesh”.
Posts and Telecommunications Minister Mustafa Jabbar chaired the function, which was addressed by AKM Rahmatullah, chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on the telecom ministry; Nur-ur Rahman, secretary, and Huawei Technologies (Bangladesh) CEO Zhang Zhengjun.
Source: https://www.thedailystar.net/business/news/5g-turns-heads-dhaka-tech-fair-1855246