Bangladesh is a developing country with limited resources, but it had never shied away from embracing new technologies. It was the first South Asian country to have a live mobile network back in 1993 by adopting AMPS technology. Electronic mail (email) was also introduced the same year. The first digital technology was introduced through awarding GSM licenses to mobile phone operators Grameenphone, Aktel and Sheba Telecom.
The country reached its first million mobile subscriptions in 2002 and achieved the 10 million mark in 2005. Within a span of four years from then, 50 million subscriptions were reached in 2009. Although, GSM is a second generation (2G) technology mainly focusing on voice, it has helped increase the internet literacy of the country, enabling more than six million people to access the internet, which makes up for more than 80% of all internet users in Bangladesh.