Digital security to be a challenge for smart Bangladesh: Jabbar

Ensuring digital security will be a big challenge for Smart Bangladesh in future and if the authorities fail in this regard, the progress made in digitalising the country will boomerang on the country, said Posts and Telecommunication Minister Mustafa Jabbar.

"Financial gambling on internet and digital platforms has already become a matter of concern as we are coming across a large number of financial fraud and crime cases every day. So we need to make people aware of both the good and bad sides of the technology before we start using it," he said at a seminar yesterday.

Talking about the importance of connectivity for the country, Mustafa Jabbar said broadband connections in every village would be key to realising the dream of Smart Bangladesh.

Telecom and Technology Reporters Network, Bangladesh (TRNB) organised the seminar, titled "Smart Connectivity for Smart Bangladesh".  

At the seminar, telecom expert TIM Nurul Kabir called upon the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) to take up projects aimed at finding the areas lagging behind and in need of improvement.

"We have achieved many successes in building Digital Bangladesh, but if we become complacent, we will not be able to reach the goal of realising a Smart Bangladesh by 2041," he said.

Regarding the quality of telecom services, Nurul Kabir said the BTRC should look into the quality of all service providers instead of monitoring only mobile operators.

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) participating in the seminar shared some of the obstacles they face in operating businesses and sought the ministry's and regulator's intervention to remove them.

Emphasising a sharing of active infrastructure among ISPs, Internet Service Providers Association of Bangladesh (ISPAB) President Md Emdadul Hoque said the authorities' permission is required to make the connectivity more accessible.

He also requested the telecom regulator to facilitate the growth of competent operators instead of capping their expansion. 

Sumon Ahmed Sabir, chief technology officer at Fiber@Home, said, "Firstly, we need to set our target and build infrastructure to achieve that goal. If we want to make our education and health sectors smart, we need to find out what our current situation is, and how much our connectivity level needs to be developed."

"To achieve this target, all the stakeholders – regulators, business operators and users – need to work together," he added.

Brig Gen (retd) SM Farhad, secretary general of the Association of Mobile Operators of Bangladesh, Brigadier General Md Nasim Parvez, director general (system and services)  of BTRC, Nazmul Karim Bhuiyan, secretary general of ISPAB , among others, spoke at the seminar.

TRNB President Rashed Mehedi chaired the event while its General Secretary SM Masuduzzaman Robin delivered the welcome address.