The Network That Became a Battlefield
When Canada effectively blocked Huawei from its 5G networks in 2022 — joining the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, and a growing list of countries in restricting the Chinese telecommunications giant — it was the latest move in what had become one of the defining geopolitical contests of the digital age. 5G networks, the backbone of the next generation of connectivity underpinning everything from autonomous vehicles and smart manufacturing to remote surgery and precision agriculture, had become the terrain of a US-China technology rivalry that was reshaping alliances, trade relationships, and infrastructure decisions in every corner of the world. The question of who builds your telecommunications network had been transformed from a technical procurement decision into a strategic geopolitical choice with long-term national security implications.
Huawei Technologies, headquartered in Shenzhen and the world's largest provider of 5G network equipment, sits at the centre of this contest. The company has consistently denied that it poses security risks or that it is subject to Chinese government direction — arguing that it is an independent private company whose products have never been proven to contain backdoors or espionage capabilities. Western governments, led by Washington, have consistently countered that China's National Intelligence Law of 2017 requires Chinese companies to cooperate with state intelligence agencies, that Huawei's founder Ren Zhengfei has military ties, and that the structural risks of placing critical telecommunications infrastructure in the hands of a company subject to those legal requirements are unacceptable regardless of whether specific malfeasance has been demonstrated.
For nations like Bangladesh, navigating this geopolitical contest while trying to build the digital infrastructure necessary for economic development and social equity, the Huawei controversy is not an abstract Western argument. It is a practical decision with direct consequences for the cost, speed, quality, and geopolitical positioning of their 5G buildout.
The Global 5G Landscape: Speed, Coverage, and the Huawei Factor
The scale of global 5G expansion by 2025 is remarkable. According to the Ericsson Mobility Report for Q1 2025, 5G subscriptions surpassed 2.4 billion in the first quarter and are projected to reach nearly 2.9 billion by year-end. Asia-Pacific on-chain activity reflects the broader pattern: countries with early, aggressive 5G rollouts — South Korea, Japan, the United States, China, India — are already experiencing the economic productivity gains the technology enables, while late movers face compounding disadvantages as 5G-dependent industries and applications develop around infrastructure they do not yet have. India's commercial 5G launch on October 1, 2022 had produced over 250 million active subscribers and 469,000 base stations by early 2025 — one of the fastest large-scale deployments in telecommunications history.
Huawei's position in this global landscape is paradoxical. In the countries that have banned or restricted it — the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Sweden, and an increasing number of European nations (eleven EU member states had enacted legal restrictions as of mid-2024, with the European Commission exploring mandatory phase-out requirements in November 2025) — alternative suppliers Nokia (Finland) and Ericsson (Sweden) have absorbed market share, albeit at higher cost and often with longer deployment timelines. In the countries that have not restricted Huawei — including much of Southeast Asia, South Asia, Africa, and Latin America — the Chinese company remains the dominant 5G equipment provider, offering technology that independent assessments consistently rate as technically competitive or superior at substantially lower cost.
The cost differential is not marginal. Multiple industry analyses estimate that replacing Huawei equipment with Western alternatives costs between 20 and 40 percent more — a figure that becomes highly consequential for developing economies operating with constrained infrastructure budgets. Germany's reluctance to complete its Huawei ban, and the July 2024 government compromise that stopped short of full exclusion (negotiating instead a "public law contract" with network operators covering security measures without requiring full equipment replacement), reflected precisely this economic calculation: a complete and immediate prohibition would, the German Interior Ministry acknowledged, "result in considerable restrictions on network operation." Germany was not alone; by 2022, approximately a quarter of European mobile network equipment was from Chinese vendors, with significant presence in major markets including Italy, Poland, and Austria alongside Germany.
Bangladesh's 5G Journey: Ambitions Delayed, Now Finally Moving
Bangladesh's 5G story is one of ambitious promises, prolonged delays, and a recent tentative beginning that still carries significant ground to make up relative to regional peers. The path illustrates the challenge facing developing economies attempting to upgrade telecommunications infrastructure in a geopolitically contested global technology environment while navigating their own domestic regulatory complexities.
The ambitions were stated early. The Awami League's 2018 election manifesto pledged 5G bandwidth by 2021-2023. Robi and Huawei conducted Bangladesh's first 5G demonstration on July 25, 2018. The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) formed committees for guidelines and spectrum pricing. In March 2022, 190 MHz of spectrum was auctioned for $1.23 billion, requiring operators to launch 5G within six months. Grameenphone conducted 5G trials in Dhaka, Chittagong, and all eight divisional cities in 2022, using Huawei and ZTE technology, achieving speeds of 600 Mbps in Sylhet and Khulna and 1,000 Mbps in Dhaka. Teletalk had conducted experimental 5G in six locations in December 2021.
The gap between these milestones and commercial deployment widened as regulatory processes stalled. The 5G guidelines promised with the 2022 auction were delayed until 2024, and when they finally appeared they omitted clear rollout obligations. In March 2024, BTRC issued unified licences to Grameenphone, Robi Axiata, Banglalink, and Teletalk — technology-neutral licences covering 2G through potential 6G. But commercial 5G deployment remained elusive. At a January 2025 press briefing, BTRC Chairman Major General (retired) Md Emdad ul Bari admitted: "I cannot provide a timeline at this moment regarding when we will or will not launch 5G." The admission came after years of announced deadlines that passed without commercial service.
The breakthrough came in September 2025. Robi became Bangladesh's first operator to launch commercial 5G service, going live in Fakirapul and Maghbazar Chowrasta in Dhaka, parts of Dhaka University, Khulshi in Chittagong, and Sagor Dighir Par in Sylhet. Robi's acting CEO M. Riyaaz Rasheed credited partnerships with both Ericsson and Huawei for enabling the rollout — signalling that Bangladesh's 5G buildout will involve Chinese equipment alongside Western alternatives. Regulatory Affairs Head Shahed Alam outlined plans to scale to over 200 sites by the end of 2025 and 1,000 by the end of 2026. Grameenphone also launched 5G services around the same time. The coverage picture remains limited: Bangladesh was estimated to have only 6 percent 5G coverage by 2025, against a regional backdrop where India had already crossed 250 million active subscribers.
The Huawei Dimension in Bangladesh's Telecom Infrastructure
Huawei's presence in Bangladesh's telecommunications infrastructure significantly predates the 5G debate. The company has been a major equipment supplier for Bangladesh's 4G buildout and was centrally involved in the country's early 5G trials. As of 2025, Huawei Technologies (Bangladesh) Limited is among the key vendors working with BTRC and operators on the country's telecommunications infrastructure modernisation, alongside Samsung R&D Institute Bangladesh, Ericsson, Nokia, and ZTE.
The question of whether Bangladesh will — or should — follow Western governments in restricting Huawei's role in its 5G networks is one that Bangladesh has not formally addressed in the manner of Canada, the UK, or Australia. The 2025 Telecommunications Network and Licensing Regime Reform Policy introduced by BTRC does address network security — requiring cybersecurity compliance, data protection standards, and lawful interception provisions — but does not contain vendor-specific restrictions analogous to those adopted by Western governments. Bangladesh's position reflects both the economic logic of developing economies (Huawei equipment is substantially cheaper than Western alternatives) and the geopolitical reality of a country that has significant economic relationships with China — Bangladesh is one of China's largest recipients of Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure financing — while also maintaining important relationships with Western partners and institutions.
The specific security concern about Huawei — that Chinese intelligence services could access telecommunications infrastructure through equipment vulnerabilities, creating surveillance or disruption capabilities — applies equally to Bangladesh as to Germany or Canada. The question is one of risk assessment and risk tolerance. Bangladesh's cybersecurity regulatory capacity is at an earlier stage of development than Western Europe's. The Cyber Security Act of 2023 addresses digital offences and cybersecurity obligations but Bangladesh's broader framework for assessing telecommunications vendor security risks at the technical level remains underdeveloped relative to the scale of the investment decisions being made.
The Structural Challenges Behind the 5G Delay
Bangladesh's delayed 5G rollout reflects structural challenges that extend well beyond the Huawei question. As of 2024, only 55 percent of mobile customers in Bangladesh were using 4G services — an improvement over 37 percent in 2020, but far below the level needed for 5G to build on a stable 4G foundation. Smartphone penetration was expected to rise to 63 percent by 2025 from 47 percent in 2024, but only 3.4 percent of mobile shipments consisted of 5G-enabled handsets — meaning that even where 5G coverage exists, the device ecosystem to use it is still nascent.
Internet penetration stood at only 44.5 percent as of early 2025. BTRC Chairman Emdad ul Bari was direct about the systemic problems: "Our telecommunications network is currently fragmented at various levels. These layers have emerged over time, sometimes for logical reasons, and sometimes not. Many layers in the network have become intermediaries. Instead of reducing transmission costs, they are increasing them." The regulatory environment has produced over 3,000 licences across 29 categories, with industry insiders alleging many were issued on political rather than technical considerations — a legacy of the previous government that the BTRC's 2025 reform agenda is attempting to address.
The 4G quality problem is itself a significant obstacle. BTRC officials acknowledged at Robi's 5G launch that "4G networks in Bangladesh are still subpar," collectively blaming regulators, government, and operators for failing to ensure quality service. If the transition from 3G to 4G left service quality below expectations, the transition from 4G to 5G — requiring substantially greater infrastructure investment, backhaul capacity, and device ecosystem development — faces compounding challenges. The comparison with India is instructive: India's rapid 5G deployment benefited from a larger device ecosystem, higher smartphone penetration, aggressive spectrum allocation with clear regulatory timelines, and strong public-private partnerships that Bangladesh has not yet replicated at equivalent scale.
Digital Connectivity and Economic Development: What 5G Means for Bangladesh
The stakes of Bangladesh's 5G trajectory extend well beyond telecommunications. 5G is the enabling infrastructure for applications that directly affect the country's economic development priorities: precision agriculture using IoT sensors in a country where agriculture employs approximately 40 percent of the workforce; telemedicine connecting rural populations to specialist medical expertise in a country with significant rural health infrastructure gaps; smart manufacturing enabling Industry 4.0 applications in the garments and export sector; and digital financial services building on the mobile money foundation that bKash and Nagad have established.
BTRC officials at Robi's 5G launch emphasised that the technology must serve rural populations, not just urban elites. Special assistant Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb warned against "widening the digital divide" and urged that 5G expansion prioritise health, education, and smart farming. The 2025 Telecommunications Reform Policy requires operators to fiberise 80 percent of towers within three years and sets quality benchmarks with spectrum fee discounts as incentives for fast deployment — signals that the regulatory framework is trying to align commercial incentives with public interest connectivity goals.
Bangladesh's Digital Bangladesh vision — now evolved into Smart Bangladesh — has consistently placed telecommunications infrastructure at the centre of economic modernisation. The country's large young population, growing digital economy (e-commerce valued at $7.5 billion in 2024), and substantial freelancer community all represent constituencies that benefit directly from high-quality, affordable connectivity. 5G delivered effectively is not a luxury for a developing economy — it is infrastructure with direct productivity and equity implications.
Navigating the Geopolitical Dimension: Non-Alignment in a Contested Technology Space
For Bangladesh, the Huawei question sits within a broader geopolitical positioning challenge that is familiar to developing economies in the current era. Bangladesh has deep economic relationships with China — which is a major source of investment, infrastructure financing, and equipment for the country. It also has important relationships with the United States, European partners, and multilateral institutions whose views on Huawei's security risks are well established. Bangladesh's diplomatic tradition has emphasised non-alignment and pragmatic engagement with multiple partners rather than alignment with any single power bloc — a posture that has served it well economically but that is increasingly being tested as technology standards and infrastructure decisions become points of geopolitical contestation.
The Huawei decision is a microcosm of this broader challenge. Accepting Huawei as a major 5G vendor — as Bangladesh has effectively done through Robi's Ericsson-and-Huawei-partnered launch — maintains cost-effective infrastructure development and avoids antagonising an important economic partner. It also creates a long-term dependency on Chinese infrastructure that Western intelligence assessments consider a security risk, and that could create complications in Bangladesh's relationships with Western partners and intelligence-sharing arrangements. The November 2025 European Commission move toward mandatory Huawei exclusion from EU member states' networks signals that this question is not going away — if anything, the pressure on developing economies to make explicit vendor choices will intensify as geopolitical contestation of technology infrastructure deepens.
Bangladesh's most credible path through this is to build the domestic technical and regulatory capacity to make these assessments independently — rather than simply following either Western geopolitical pressure or Chinese economic incentives. That requires investment in cybersecurity expertise within BTRC, clear vendor security assessment frameworks, and the regulatory independence to make decisions based on national interest rather than external pressure. The 2025 BTRC reform process, which is attempting to rationalise a fragmented licensing structure and build clearer regulatory standards, is a step in the right direction. Whether it will produce the institutional capacity needed to navigate the Huawei question — and the many similar technology geopolitics questions that will follow it as 6G, AI infrastructure, and data sovereignty become the next contested terrain — remains to be seen.
What is clear is that 5G has arrived in Bangladesh. Robi's September 2025 launch, Grameenphone's simultaneous rollout, and the regulatory framework taking shape under BTRC's 2025 reform agenda all signal that the long-delayed transition is finally beginning. The global telecom wars that produced the Huawei bans in Canada and across the West have created a more complex procurement environment for that transition. Bangladesh must build its digital future in that complexity — pragmatically, carefully, and with growing awareness that every infrastructure decision carries geopolitical weight that earlier generations of connectivity investment did not.
win-tk.org is a wintk publication covering global and regional affairs with a focus on Bangladesh and South Asia.
