Chattogram Close-Out Ends Robi’s Countrywide 4G Rebuild

The operator says its final phase across Chattogram, Cumilla and Noakhali improved 4G experience by up to 20% and expanded indoor coverage by around 10%.

BANGLADESH-DAILY LIFE-PORT — A Bangladeshi passenger makes a call from a chained cellular telephone at a phone booth at the Sadarghat Launch Terminal in Dhaka on January 9, 2009. The Sadarghat Launch Terminal, located on the banks of the Buriganga river and one of the world's largest river ports, is the main port and dock of Bangladesh's capital, which sees thousands of people and tons of cargo pass through its docks daily. Photo by DESHAKALYAN CHOWDHURY/AFP via Getty Images

Robi Axiata has finished the last block of a countrywide 4G modernisation, swapping out more than 3,500 sites in Chattogram, Cumilla, and Noakhali in 180 days and declaring the nationwide programme closed.

The operator announced the close on Sunday at Radisson Blu Chattogram Bay View, at a gathering titled "Celebration of Robi's 4G Network Modernisation in Chattogram." Senior Robi officials stood with regulators and local development figures. The company said the final phase ran with almost no break in service, a claim that matters in a market where a tower outage shows up immediately as a dead signal in a shop, a factory floor, or a ferry terminal.

Robi framed the work as more than a refresh of ageing 4G radios. The rebuilt layer, it said, is meant to be stronger and more reliable now, and ready to carry 5G later. In the three south-eastern regions, the operator reported an average gain of up to 20 percent in 4G experience. Indoor coverage widened too: about 10 percent more people now sit inside improved indoor 4G. That indoor figure is the one households and offices are likely to notice first. Outdoor signal on a main road has long been the easier part of a mobile network in Bangladesh. Concrete buildings, dense markets, and port warehouses are where calls and data still fail.

Part of the upgrade is Multiple Input Multiple Output, or MIMO, gear, which uses several antennas to send and receive at once. Robi said the deployment improved signal quality and coverage. The new equipment also cut energy use by up to 12 percent. For a tower fleet that runs around the clock, often on grid power backed by generators and batteries, that is both a cost line and a carbon line. The company tied the saving to its effort to lower emissions and run the network more efficiently.

The guest list treated the Chattogram phase as a regional economic story, not only a telecom one. Mohammad Abu Sufian, member of parliament for Chattogram-9, said modern digital infrastructure in the country's commercial gateway would support trade, industrialisation, and smart-city management. Chattogram Development Authority chairman Belayet Hossain said dependable telecommunications was essential for a digital economy, and that the upgrade should improve customer service while backing economic activity and digital change in the region. Port traffic, garment and steel plants, and a city that still plans around congestion all depend on a network that holds up indoors and at peak hour, not only on the highway.

BTRC chairman Major General (retd) Md Emdad Ul Bari called a modernisation of this scale, finished in a short window, a significant engineering achievement. "Robi's investment in improving connectivity will further strengthen Bangladesh's telecommunications sector," he said. The regulator's presence matters because spectrum, site rules, and quality-of-service targets sit with BTRC, and operators are still arguing over auction timing and renewal fees for bands that will decide how fast 5G can follow a 4G rebuild.

Robi managing director and chief executive Ziad Shatara said the Chattogram phase was the end of the company's nationwide network transformation, not a standalone regional project. "This is not only a technological achievement but also an important milestone in ensuring the highest-quality digital experience for customers in Bangladesh," he said. He added that, after more than 4,800 sites in greater Dhaka, the Chattogram result had taken the same programme to another level.

The Dhaka block is the benchmark Robi is using. The company has described it as the largest and fastest network overhaul in its history. Across clusters there, it reported customer-experience gains of up to 125 percent, a 20 percent drop in call drops, and indoor experience improved by up to three times for nearly half of customers. Those numbers are the company's own. They are also the comparison subscribers in Cumilla or Noakhali will quietly make in the next few months: whether video holds, whether a call survives a lift lobby, whether upload speed is steady enough for a payment or a class.

Robi is Bangladesh's second-largest mobile operator. Malaysia's Axiata Group Berhad holds 61.82 percent, India's Bharti Airtel 28.18 percent, and public shareholders the remaining 10 percent. Since listing, the company has put large sums into network expansion; the Chattogram close is the visible end of one chapter of that spending. Completing the programme, Robi said, strengthens capacity and its commitment to the country's digital build-out.

What the announcement does not settle is demand. Mobile internet is how most people in Bangladesh go online, and data use keeps rising even where computer ownership barely moves. A modernised 4G grid in the commercial south-east should absorb more of that load and give 5G a cleaner base when spectrum and handsets allow it. Whether the 20 percent experience gain and the wider indoor footprint show up in everyday use is the test that starts after the event at the Bay View.