Grameenphone LTD, widely abbreviated as (

d/b/a A trade name, trading name, or business name is a pseudonym used by companies that do not operate under their registered company name. The term for this type of alternative name is fictitious business name. Registering the fictitious name with ...

) GP, is a telecommunications service provider in Bangladesh. As of December 2023, its subscribers span over 82.20 million. It is a joint venture between

Telenor Telenor ASA ( or ) is a Norwegian majority state-owned multinational telecommunications company headquartered at Fornebu in Bærum, close to Oslo. It is one of the world's largest mobile telecommunications companies with operations worldwi ...

and

Grameen Telecom Grameen Telecom (GTC) was established in Bangladesh by Muhammad Yunus with a partial stake in Grameenphone (GP) and registered as a Not-for-Profit Company, Limited by Guarantee, under Section 28 of the Companies Act, 1994. GTC launched the program ...

. Where

owns a 55.8% share of Grameenphone,

owns 34.2% and the remaining 10% is publicly held. As of Nov 2024, Grameenphone is Bangladesh's most valuable company with a market cap of more than ৳440.2 billion BDT or $3.6 billion USD (approximately). Grameenphone was the first company to introduce GSM technology over 900 and 1800 MHz in Bangladesh. It was also the first company to introduce 5G network in the country, for which the first test was done in

Dhaka Dhaka ( or ; , ), List of renamed places in Bangladesh, formerly known as Dacca, is the capital city, capital and list of cities and towns in Bangladesh, largest city of Bangladesh. It is one of the list of largest cities, largest and list o ...

and

Chittagong Chittagong ( ), officially Chattogram, (, ) (, or ) is the second-largest city in Bangladesh. Home to the Port of Chittagong, it is the busiest port in Bangladesh and the Bay of Bengal. The city is also the business capital of Bangladesh. It ...

metropolitan area in mid-2022. In September 2022, Grameenphone successfully conducted trials for the second time in

Sylhet Sylhet (; ) is a Metropolis, metropolitan city in the north eastern region of Bangladesh. It serves as the administrative center for both the Sylhet District and the Sylhet Division. The city is situated on the banks of the Surma River and, as o ...

Khulna Khulna (, ) is the third-largest city in Bangladesh, after Dhaka and Chittagong. It is the administrative centre of the Khulna District and the Khulna Division. It is the divisional centre of 10 districts of the division. Khulna is also the seco ...

Rajshahi Rajshahi (, ) is a metropolis, metropolitan city and a major Urban area, urban, administrative, commercial and educational centre of Bangladesh. It is also the administrative seat of the eponymous Rajshahi Division, division and Rajshahi Distr ...

Barisal Barisal ( or ; , ), officially known as Barishal, is a major city that lies on the banks of the Kirtankhola river in south-central Bangladesh. It is the largest city and the administrative headquarter of both Barisal District and Barisal Divi ...

Mymensingh Mymensingh () is a metropolis, metropolitan city and capital of Mymensingh Division, Bangladesh. Located on the bank of the Old Brahmaputra River, Brahmaputra River, about north of the national capital Dhaka, it is a major financial center ...

and

Rangpur Rangpur may refer to: Places In Bangladesh *Rangpur Division, one of the eight administrative divisions of Bangladesh. *Rangpur District, district of Bangladesh in Rangpur Division. *Rangpur, Bangladesh, metropolis and a major city in northern ...

cities.

History

Founder

Muhammad Yunus Muhammad Yunus (born 28 June 1940) is a Bangladeshi economist, entrepreneur, and civil society leader who has been serving as the Chief Adviser of Bangladesh, Chief Adviser of the Interim government of Muhammad Yunus, interim Yunus ministry, g ...

founded Grameenphone to provide universal mobile phone access throughout Bangladesh, including its rural areas. He was inspired by the

Grameen Bank Grameen Bank () is a microfinance, specialized community development bank founded in Bangladesh. It provides small loans (known as microcredit or "grameencredit") to the impoverished without requiring collateral. Grameen Bank is a statutory ...

micro-credit model and envisioned a business model where a cell phone can serve as a source of income. After leaving his job as an investment banker in the United States, Quadir met and successfully raised money from New York-based investor and philanthropist Joshua Mailman. He then returned to Bangladesh and worked for three years to gain support from organizations such as Grameen Bank and the Norwegian telecom company,

Changing logo

On 16 November 2006, Grameenphone officially changed its logo to match its parent company Telenor's logo.

Numbering scheme

Grameenphone uses the following numbering scheme for its subscribers: * +880 13 XXXXXXXX * +880 17 XXXXXXXX 880 is the ISD code for Bangladesh and is needed only in case of dialing from outside Bangladesh (otherwise, it may be substituted by a 0, making the prefix 013 & 017). 13 & 17 is the prefix for Grameenphone as allocated by the government of Bangladesh. The following eight-digit number XXXXXXXX is the subscriber number. After exhausting the 017 series, Grameenphone became the first operator to launch a second series, the 013. In 2018, when

Mobile number portability Mobile number portability (MNP) enables mobile phone users to retain a mobile telephone number when changing the mobile network operator. Overview Mobile number portability (MNP) allows people to keep their phone numbers when switching to a ne ...

was introduced users can port to any operator without changing its number.

Customers

As of September 2024, total number of customer are 84.83 Million.

Network

According to Grameenphone, it has invested more than BDT 347.4 billion (US$4.12 billion) to build the

network infrastructure A computer network is a collection of communicating computers and other devices, such as printers and smart phones. In order to communicate, the computers and devices must be connected by wired media like copper cables, optical fibers, or b ...

since 2018. Grameenphone has built the largest

cellular network A cellular network or mobile network is a telecommunications network where the link to and from end nodes is wireless network, wireless and the network is distributed over land areas called ''cells'', each served by at least one fixed-locatio ...

in the country. Until July 2024, GP (Grameenphone) has 22,554 Mobile Network towers or BTS, which geographically covers the largest population of Bangladesh with mobile network services.

Spectrums

The Grameenphone network is also

GPRS General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), also called 2.5G, is a mobile data standard on the 2G cellular communication network's Global System for Mobile Communications, global system for mobile communications (GSM). Networks and mobile devices wit ...

EDGE Edge or EDGE may refer to: Technology Computing * Edge computing, a network load-balancing system * Edge device, an entry point to a computer network * Adobe Edge, a graphical development application * Microsoft Edge, a web browser developed by ...

/ 3G-enabled, with a growing 4G network, allowing internet access within its coverage area. its spectrum volume is 127. 4 MHz, 107.4 MHz are currently being used by Grameenphone, the remaining 20 MHz will be added from June 2025. Besides, Grameenphone is trying to buy more 850 bands of 10 MHz spectrum.

Products and services

Grameenphone introduced pre-paid mobile phone service in Bangladesh in September 1999 via an EDGE/GPRS/3G/4G enabled network. Grameenphone was the first mobile operator in Bangladesh to offer internet via EDGE and 3G 4G services to its subscribers. In March 2022, Grameenphone became the first mobile network operator in Bangladesh with embedded-SIM (

eSIM An eSIM (embedded SIM) is a form of SIM card that is embedded directly into a device as software installed onto a eUICC chip. First released in March 2016, eSIM is a global specification by the GSMA that enables remote SIM provisioning; end ...

) support.

Bioscope

Bioscope (Live TV) is a

video streaming Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos, television shows and films digitally on request. These multimedia are accessed without a traditional video playback device and a typical static broadcasting ...

platform for original shows, dramas, movies and

live tv Live television is a television production broadcast in real-time, as events happen, in the present. In a secondary meaning, it may refer to streaming television where all viewers watch the same stream simultaneously, rather than watching video o ...

launched in 2016.

Ekhanei.com

Ekhanei.com was an e-commerce service (also known as CellBaazar) to enable users to sell or buy products through mobile or internet. It was free to use for all Grameenphone customers but was closed in 2017.

Other services

* GPAY is a service to enable users to pay their utility bills through mobile launched in 2016. * Mobileplay is an online gaming service.

Other activities

Village phone

With the help of Grameenphone, Grameen Telecom operates the national

Village Phone Grameen Telecom (GTC) was established in Bangladesh by Muhammad Yunus with a partial stake in Grameenphone (GP) and registered as a Not-for-Profit Company, Limited by Guarantee, under Section 28 of the Companies Act, 1994. GTC launched the program ...

program, alongside its own parent

and the

International Finance Corporation The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is an international financial institution headquartered in Washington, D.C. and a member of the World Bank Group that offers investment, advisory, and asset-management services to encourage private ...

(IFC), acting as the sole provider of telecommunications services to a number of rural areas. Most Village Phone participants are women living in remote areas. Village Phone works as an owner-operated

GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a family of standards to describe the protocols for second-generation (2G) digital cellular networks, as used by mobile devices such as mobile phones and Mobile broadband modem, mobile broadba ...

payphone whereby a borrower takes a BDT 12,000 (US$200) loan from

to subscribe to Grameenphone and is then trained on how to operate it and how to charge others to use it at a profit. As of September 2006, there are more than 255,000 Village Phones in operation in 55,000 villages around Bangladesh. This program has been replicated also in some other countries including

Uganda Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the ...

and

Rwanda Rwanda, officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of East Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator, Rwanda is bordered by ...

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

Grameenphone Corporate Headquarter (GP House)

Grameenphone Corporate Headquarter (popularly known as "GP House"). Located at Bashundhara R/A,

, was formally inaugurated on 23 November 2010. GP House is considered one of the successful office buildings in

Bangladesh Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world and among the List of countries and dependencies by ...

. It has been designed by

Architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

Mohammad Foyez Ullah Mohammad Foyez Ullah (, born 1 January 1967) is a Bangladeshi architect. He is the founder and principal architect of Volumezero Limited, and also co-founded Vistara Architects. He began his career in academia, and an assistant professor in the ...

Mustapha Khalid Palash Mustapha Khalid Palash (born 11 September 1963) is a Bangladeshi architect, artist, singer and painter. Palash is proficient in several instruments. Early life and education Palash was born to artist Afroz Mustapha (d. 2018). Palash has been ...

and their team.

Community Information Centers

Community Information Center (CIC) or GPCIC was an initiative aimed at providing internet access and other communications services to rural areas. In February 2006, 26 CICs were established across the country as a pilot project. In this project, Grameenphone provided

infrastructure and technical support and other partners Grameen Telecom Corporation and Society for Economic and Basic Advancement (SEBA), were involved in selecting and training entrepreneurs to run the village centers. These CICs were used for a wide variety of business and personal purposes, from accessing health and agricultural information to using government services to video conferencing with relatives overseas. Grameenphone also trained entrepreneurs so that they could demonstrate to people how to set up an e-mail account and best make use of the Internet. Currently, none of the CICs are being operated by GP.

Grameenphone Centres

A Grameenphone Centre (GPC) serves as a "one-stop solution" for customers, with all telecommunications products and services, under a single roof. A Grameenphone Centre also sells phones from vendors like

Samsung Samsung Group (; stylised as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean Multinational corporation, multinational manufacturing Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in the Samsung Town office complex in Seoul. The group consists of numerous a ...

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

Xiaomi Xiaomi (; ) is a Chinese multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Beijing, China. It is best known for consumer electronics software electric vehicles. It is the second-largest manufacturer of smartphones in the worl ...

and more.

modems and accessories such chargers and headphones are also sold at GPCs. As of February 2013, there are 85 GPCs and they are strategically located at all major locations of the country operated by Grameenphone. There are two GP Lounges for customer experience of GP Digital Services. There are also 376,285 unique recharge outlets and 6,836 GP Express Stores all across Bangladesh.

References

External links

* * {{Authority control Telenor Mobile phone companies of Bangladesh Telecommunications companies established in 1997 Companies listed on the Chittagong Stock Exchange Telecommunications companies of Bangladesh Bangladeshi subsidiaries of foreign companies Companies listed on the Dhaka Stock Exchange Companies in the DSE 30 Index