A total of 180 people have subscribed to Bhutan Telecom Limited’s dial-up broadband services launched earlier this month, far less than what Telecom officials expected.

“But it’s picking up gradually,” said the officiating general manager of Druknet, Bhutan Telecom’s ISP. The new broadband service, is available in the core areas of Thimphu, Phuentsholing, Paro, Wangdue, Trongsa and Kanglung.

The cost of broadband subscription varies from Nu 1,000 to 15,000 a month, according to the size of the package, which varies from a download limit of 500 mbps to 2 Gb. More than half the broadband subscribers are private companies, mostly tour operators, Druknet officials said.

BTL started with below 300 kbps bandwidth in 1999 and today it provides a bandwidth of 45 megabytes per second (mbps) through the optical fibre, which it secured earlier this year, and 30 mbps via satellite.

Users of the service said that it was worth the payment. “The speed is good and we can even deliver large files,” said an official of Bhutan Center of Excellence.

Karma Dendup of Athang E-World uses the broadband connection for large downloads for his graphic works. “We’ve subscribed for the one mbps package and offer it to customers surfing the net,” he said, adding that he also subscribed to Drukcom, a private Internet service provider, to serve as a back-up connection to Druknet’s broadband service.

But even as broadband becomes available in six urban centres, a majority of Bhutanese have no access to the Internet. Bhutan Telecom estimates it has about 25,000 users throughout the country, which is less than five percent of the total population.

“The present Internet users are mainly government offices and some private companies, but only a small portion are private individuals,” said the officiating general manager, Jichen Thinley, of Bhutan Telecom’s IT division.

Bridging the digital divide in Bhutan means getting over two difficult situations: a large IT illiterate rural populace, who cannot afford the end equipment – computers.

“Not many Bhutanese can afford computers these days. We hope it improves,” he said, optimistic of a change in the trend in future with the company’s recent reduction in tariffs. Source: Kuenselonline