Bangladesh coverage

What the Bangladesh numbers mean

Two numbers matter and only one of them is the one every seller quotes. The typical speed, 28 Mbps, tells you what a good moment looks like.

The tenth percentile, 6 Mbps, is the one that matters. It is the speed in the worst tenth of the day, when the cell above the station is full and everybody around you is on it too. A country with a high median and a low floor is a country that works beautifully right up until the moment you actually need it.

If the trip depends on video calls or tethering, plan around the busy figure rather than the typical one.

What happens in Bangladesh when the network is busy

Congestion is not a fault, it is a Tuesday evening. The question is what your eSIM can do about it, and for most travel eSIMs the answer is nothing: one wholesale agreement per country, one network, and no way out except buying a second eSIM from somebody else while standing in the street.

Here, Orbislo traffic runs over Grameenphone and Robi. When the network you are on degrades we move you to another one, mid trip, without you asking, and tell you afterwards rather than interrupting you at the time.

Mobile operators in Bangladesh

• Grameenphone: Grameenphone had 87.20 million subscribers in August 2026, the largest share of Bangladesh's 191.09 million mobile connections, according to the regulator's monthly figures.
• Robi: Robi Axiata had 59.04 million mobile subscribers in Bangladesh in August 2026, making it the second largest of the four networks on the regulator's count.
• Banglalink: Banglalink had 37.95 million mobile subscribers in Bangladesh in August 2026, according to the telecommunication regulator's monthly subscriber table.
• Teletalk: State owned Teletalk had 6.90 million mobile subscribers in August 2026, by far the smallest of Bangladesh's four mobile networks.
• Spectrum holdings: On the regulator's current allocation table Grameenphone holds 137.4 MHz of access spectrum, including 80 MHz at 2.6 GHz and 10 MHz at 700 MHz, and Robi holds 124 MHz, including 80 MHz at 2.6 GHz.
• Spectrum holdings, continued: Banglalink holds 80 MHz of access spectrum, including 40 MHz at 2.3 GHz and none at 2.6 GHz or 700 MHz, while Teletalk holds 65.2 MHz, including 20 MHz at 2.3 GHz and 10 MHz at 700 MHz.

5G in Bangladesh

• Bangladesh's March 2022 auction sold 60 MHz each at 2.6 GHz to Grameenphone and Robi, 40 MHz at 2.3 GHz to Banglalink and 30 MHz at 2.3 GHz to Teletalk, for about Tk 1,064.5 crore in total.
• Grameenphone launched commercial 5G on 1 September 2025 in all of Bangladesh's divisional headquarters, the first operator to offer it at that scale.
• Robi also launched commercial 5G on 1 September 2025, at selected locations in Dhaka, Chattogram and Sylhet. It works only on 5G phones that support Robi's specific 5G frequencies.

Network notes for Bangladesh

• Of the 2.27 million handsets made in Bangladesh in August 2026, about 1.5 million were 2G handsets and about 35,000 were 5G handsets, while feature phones made up 66.17 percent of production.
• Bangladesh had 46,717 mobile towers in August 2026. Tower companies own most of them, with edotco alone holding 16,982, while among the networks Grameenphone owns 11,788, Banglalink 3,905, Teletalk 3,526 and Robi 2,185.
• Grameenphone VoLTE calls work only between two Grameenphone numbers. Outside VoLTE coverage, Grameenphone says calls are made over its 3G and 2G networks instead.
• To use Grameenphone VoLTE a phone needs a 4G SIM, a model Grameenphone has enabled, current software with VoLTE switched on, and 4G coverage. Not every 4G handset is supported.