EDGE / GPRS / EVDO

In Bangladesh, the mobile phone companies emphasized mainly on voice service upto the end of 2005. Since then, the operators are introducing newer and modern technology to meet the data communication requirement of the clients. Other countries adopted those features long ago, specially the GPRS. GrameenPhone is the pioneer in introducing this type of data service to the people of Bangladesh. When GrameenPhone offered the service as a trial basis, Aktel announced the same sort of service… However, GP started staying a step ahead by offering EDGE where as Aktel started with GPRS. More over, after the trial period (to some selected users) GP’s service was available to both prepaid and postpaid customers. Aktel offered the service to both type of users recently prior to what the service was only available to the post paid users. Banglalink on the other hand offered GPRS to its postpaid Enterprise users from the beginning of 2007, depriving the prepaid and normal postpaid users. TeleTalk has offered reasonable packages for both prepaid and postpaid users. Infact teletalk is the only operator to offer unlimited usage package to the prepaid users also. Warid started its operation with the GPRS facilty, but yet to offer any unlimited usage package. Citycell, country’s only CDMA operator, has however started its data service after adopting CDMA 2000 1xRTT technology country wide. The data service technology by Citycell is known as EVDO (Evolution-Data Optimized). The service name is “My Citycell Zoom” and is only availble for the post paid users again depriving the prepaid users. Moreover, the package has flavor of both the time validation and data limit. This is not as cheap as the unlimited offers by the other operators nor as expensive as the Taka/MB offers.

Tariff plan for EDGE/GPRS/EVDO service:

General Packet Radio Services (GPRS) simply is an extension of the GSM standard to provide packet data services. It was introduced in late 2000. It can provide data rates from 56 to 114 Kbps and continuous connection to the Internet for mobile phone and computer users.

Enhanced Data rates for Global Evolution (EDGE) is a radio based high-speed mobile data standard. It allows data transmission speeds upto 384 kbps to be achieved when all eight timeslots are used. In fact, EDGE was formerly called GSM384. This means a maximum bit rate of 48 kbps per timeslot. Even higher speeds may be available in good radio conditions.

EVDO or Evolution Data Only/Evolution Data Optimized (often abbreviated as EVDO, EV-DO, EvDO, 1xEV-DO or 1xEvDO) provides fast wireless broadband (3G) internet service. EVDO is based on the 1xRTT standard, which is available in almost all cell phone coverage areas and provides Internet speeds of about 2-3 times that of dial-up (about 60K-100K).

A comparison between different Data Standards:

An advanced level article on this topic is available in the following link:

3g-mobile-communication-roadmap-and-a-problem 

89 thoughts on “EDGE / GPRS / EVDO

  1. sorry for late response Adnan.

    for speed thing:
    you better use Aktel or Warid’s EDGE connection, but certainly not of Grammeen for personal use. I heared that Aktel is providing a good speed. You also need to check if the network signal is good enough at your area and in your room.

    for price thing:
    you can visit http://www.clickbd.com or http://www.cellbazzar.com if you wanna buy second-hand set with comparatively very low price – all you need to check if the person and the phone set is good.

  2. GP internet is shocking right now. I used to get 7/8 KBps too but at the moment mostly less than 1 Kilo Bytes. I think GP should really start thinking about it. Last time I called up GP and their customer service is really annoying giving customer wrong information quite frequently. GP needs more bandwidth for increased customer and promotions but all the blame they are putting on BTTB. I guess we all should meet up one day and talk in front of media / press. Only media can screw them up!

  3. GP internet speed is decreasing day by day. I am used unlimited EDGE of GP and avg speed was 5-7kb/s. Banglalink is better than GP. I get 15-20kb/s now at Blink for 650tk/month.

  4. Don’t expect GrameenPhone to improve. Banglalink is doing good now with their EDGE. So all GP users buy blink sim costing 1150tk and use unlimited EDGE net for 650tk/month + 15% VAT. No monthly rent. Also u ppl can switch to Aktel.

  5. Banglalink has not officially launched edge. In my house at mirpur 11(purobi) edge sign has been started to show but the speed has not been upgraded yet. Although i have got the unlimited package. In my house gp was the best (25 kilobyte/s maximum, 15 on avg), but this is still costly. I used aktel edge lending from my friend, it was amazing, same as gp. Hence aktel is same costly like gp. I heard that warid edge is very kool when and where available. So lets wait friends. Cause the internet fight is engorging like the tariff war we have experienced last couple of years.

  6. By the way i heard that bttb has cut down 25% of bandwith cost. Will it contribute to reduce the internet charge in the mobile sector?

  7. Gp is really asshole.BTTB is really mother fucker.I agree with all of you.but i think we are helpless.our honest govt(actually prostitute)is sucking our blood.the beggar govt beg money for us from foreign country but they spend this money for themselves.but if you will say against it then probably they will proclaim that you are a traitor who is spoiling the image of bangladesh.

  8. actually i wanted to say our govt will declare us as traitor who spoil the image of bangladesh if we want to protest our holy asshole govt.

  9. Good job guys.keep up this good work.i think that net cost at this time is too much for anyone.gp is now making disconnetion in gprs commonly.i get mad for this when using mig33.you guys should not hope any facility from gp.others will not also make a great facility for us.i think if we had any professional wimax type net company that would make any great change.thanks

  10. I use AKTEL gprs, 2 months ago i got maximum 20K but now getting maximum 10K…..it is better that our local broadband service provider….isn’t it?

  11. guys have you seen the add of BSNL of india recently they are providing 2mega bits/sec for 250 rupees permonth and its unlimited(24 hours a day)what the fuck we are getting here in bangladesh for 1150 taka from grameen like 2-5 kilo bytes per sec(real shit).fuck you grameen and and other mobile and isps for providing such crap net service.

  12. GP is currently giving good NET service. Most of the times, I am getting 20-25 KBPS for download. But sometimes it lowers down to 7-8 KBPS. But still The unlimited Package of GP is quite expensive(1150 Tk. Incl. VAT). This should be 600-700 tk(incl. VAT)

  13. Hey Guys,

    Do anyone know about Indian VSNL? I heard they provide 2MB/Sec at a very very cheap rate of 250 RS. Per month. If Indian VSNL can provide such speed why can’t BD’s Rangs or National Phone can’t provide it?

  14. No matter what govt comes

    Internet speed will never improve.

    Currently price of 1mbps internet is 42000+

    There is no paypal in the country

    No ecommerce.

    Its hard/impossible for an ordinary person to Get International credit/Debit card and do web business from here.

    You cannot send money outside BD. Needs prior approval of Bangladesh Bank. You cant purchase a shit from internet.

    Google adsense cheque takes ages(30days+) to cash and some BD banks like Dutch Bangla Charges $70 for it. And STandard Chartered Refuse to cash less then $500.
    =======================================
    India has gone big with IT. THey have head office of google in hydrabad. There IT geeks living my adsense(income) and adword(advertising). They earn via CJ AMAZON COPEAC and many many affiliate marketing resources. There call center and software are booming. Getting international credit debit card or high speed 1mbps internet is matter of 1 day there.
    ====================================

    Bangladesh doesnt even understand IT business. They give 1crore in the development of it and just eat the whole amount themselves. Which ever govt comes they dont have even 1% knowledge of IT business.

    And what is the no 1 problem in BAngladesh?

    Electricity and Power.

    Govt come and go. And they cant even give full electricty to DHAKA or CHT. Such a small country. And still in DARKNESS. And saying we are developing. We are not developing or moving forward. We are actually finished.

    Garments and Foreign exchange senders are pulling the countries economy some what. But how long is that possible?

    If a countries media film sports IT and industrial sectors are going to suffer. And no improvement in power electricity and increase of apartment price 10X within few year. What left for the future?

    This Pure country our beloved motherland of GOLD has been destroyed by few elite peoples. Some son of a ***** did this so the country economy ruins.

    Bangladesh now means die or suffer.

  15. Hi guys! I have read your comments and they are very helpful. I live in Chittagong city and I have been using Grameen EDGE service(P2, Unlimited 1 month) for more than 9 months with my GPRS class 10(32-48Kbps)/EDGE class 10(236.8 Kbps) enabled Samsung SGH-X700 and Nokia 3110 Classic. But I am very very unsatisfied with the service. Webpages load slowly, FTP downloads are slow, and Torrent downloads are nightmare(I think Grameen actually blocks those IPs) though phones always show E icon. So what’s going wrong? Is it my hardware and software or the ISP? Should I discard Grameen? If I do, which should I go for? I am confused because some of you specially one of my neighbors FAHAD(30 kilobytes/second. Incredible! Isn’t it?) are
    getting very good speed from Grameen and some of you are ranking Warid at the top. Does
    AKTEL/Banglalink has unlimited Perpaid/Postpaid EDGE service?
    Please help me to choose an ISP.

    And one more thing. As much as I know and some of you have already mentioned Kb means Kilobit(s) and KB means Kilobyte(s) and 1KB=8Kb etc. Network speeds are measured in Kbps, mbps etc. while download, upload speeds are measured in KBps, MBps etc. If so, then please mention the speeds in KBps to avoid confusion.

  16. One of my neighbours are using citycell zoom.As citycell claims that they have evdo, the speed isn’t relevant at all.According to the chart above it shouldn’t take more than 25 seconds to download a 2mb file.But it almost takes a minute or sometimes a bit more.I guess it isn’t evdo after all.

  17. I like all comments on this page. I’m using GP Edge from last year. Until few days ago I got 30-40 kbps with my Sony ericsson W810i. But now I’m getting only 2-4 kbps. Isn’t it horrible ? Now a days all are money whore. I’m a student. And I’ve to manage very hardly the cost of connection rate. But it sucks when I’m getting such a shit bandwidth.

  18. I use gp p4 service which is 60 taka for 24 hours with usage limit of 150 mb with my nokia n73 set, i get around 18/20 KBPS and it doesn’t go below 15 KBPS with as high as 27 KBPS and i live in farmgate, by the way KBPS= kilo byte per second

  19. hey all, good news. now probably we are going to have a better speed.

    citycell is launching ev-do services in Bangladesh recently. wow! now we will have as more as 2Mbps speed, that’s much more than what we are getting currently. more than 10 times faster than current download, just imagine.

    visit http://broadbandinbangladesh.wordpress.com/ for about the news.

    those who doesn’t know ev-do, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution-Data_Optimized/.

    so far got the news at http://broadbandinbangladesh.wordpress.com/, it will be opened soon.

    i will be keeping in touch with the site for more details.

    best,
    riyadh

  20. Ref: Riyadh, about Citycell launching EV-DO.

    Tk. 4500 per month and Tk. 12000 for a modem for only 1.5GB??? Is it a joke or something!!!
    What the hell I would do with that speed which will suck out all my money? I would rather use four P2 with four phones/modems simultaneously. Hope it will be much better and cheaper.

    Three companies got WiMAX license recently. Please let us be informed about their progress in this site regularly.

  21. m vry much disappointd wid the internet planz gvn by operatorz in bd ..
    In india i get
    gprs by bsnl at Rs.200/month unlimited. Speed is usualy around 20 kilo bytes/sec
    nd broadband for Rs.250/month 2gb limitd. Speed is 2mega bytes/sec whch evn croses it at nyt ..
    I dun undrstand y in bd thy charge too much .. 🙁 🙁
    nd also airtel giving 8mega bytes/sec unlimited for only Rs.1000
    WTF i cnt evn dwnload torrents on gp nw ..:@
    ths realy sukx

  22. What’s wrong with u GUY’s????????????? 😛 i’m using GP EDGE too and always i got 22-25 KBps download SPEEEEEEEEED 😀 😀 😀

  23. U guys suckz… totally freak me out.. Im using GP EDGE for a long time by modem n Im getting damn good no great speed. My average is above 25KBps n m getting 40KBps+ often.

    I donno how do u use it??? Ok maybe u can try downloading by Download Managers. IDM(internet download manager) is a very good one. It’s a free one… just search it n d/l it.

    I can d/l 1.5GB easily in one day n d/l two 700MB movies each = 1.4GB every day

  24. Stop lying Evan .Maybe u’re a gp agent.
    As a speedtest user,gp only posts 13.725 mbps speed in one ip.And has only 5 or 6ips.So as a peer u can’t possibly get a 700 mb file in a day.I for one have speeds above 30 but ity still ain’t possible as wireless=Unreliable.It’s nature is to fluctuate.I have got a maximum of 459KBps for 3 seconds one day,but my average stays at 25kBps.So stop lying.Even with 25Kbps in a highly seeded torrent it is quite impossible to complete it in less that 15hours as the speeds don’t always stay at the same pace.And I use a nokia n81 8gig and a n95 8gig as a modem.The 95 outperforms my 81 by bursting up to 45 sometimes.But it’s commonly rare.Ang Gp’s coonections are always relevant to gprs not edge or even in another name E-gprs.It has trouble connecting with egprs(Enhanced) speeds.And 3g is unavailabe by a long shot.

  25. I think gp edge is the coolest one. With my Sony Ericsson k 550i I attaind up to 45 kbps.
    The service was good then. but i think now a days gp edgs service is not upto the mark. citycell may have been better if the rate is reasonable.

  26. I use GP EDGE P2 internet with Nokia 6630 mobile. I get maximum around 29 kilo BYTE per second. I think the speed also depends upon the set. I have seen few sets r giving same performance as 6630. I have also used 6300. though both the set have same class EDGE, but 6300 cant give same performance with pc. My opinion is GP EDGE is the fastest one in Bangladesh. Warid launched 3G on test basis in Dhaka. but i dont know how far it went.

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