Once pitched as the fast, wireless alternative to fixed broadband, WiMAX lit up billboards and rooftops across Dhaka. USB modems and indoor CPEs promised freedom from cables. For a brief window, it looked like the future.
The origin was ambitious. In 2008 Banglalion won a nationwide Broadband Wireless Access licence and spectrum, and launched service in 2009, expanding from divisional cities into major districts. The bet was expensive, with spectrum fees around Tk 215 crore, but the category felt primed for scale.
Then the ground shifted. From 2013, 3G and later 4G made mobile internet cheap, ubiquitous, and good enough. WiMAX’s city-centric footprint, the need for separate devices, and a shrinking global vendor ecosystem accelerated subscriber loss; the base fell sharply as users moved to mobile.
Fixes were attempted but late. Regulators signalled paths to LTE and operators sought partnerships, yet conversion demanded fresh capex after heavy WiMAX spend. Collaboration ideas with mobile players stalled amid regulatory and economic friction, and execution never caught up with demand.
The ending was financial, not just technical. By 2021 Banglalion reportedly owed about Tk 200 crore to the regulator, and operations unwound; rivals like Qubee had already retreated from retail or gone dark, handing over remaining users and underscoring the category’s decline.
The takeaway is timing plus ecosystem. Spectrum economics, device friction, and mobile’s distribution advantage outpaced a promising idea. In Bangladesh, the internet “went mobile,” and a wireless broadband niche without scale, upgrade paths, or partners could not hold on to relevance or recall.