42% of households still out of internet access: BBS survey

Around 42 percent of households across the country remain outside internet services, with household-level internet use falling to 58.2 percent in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025-26 from 59.7 percent a year earlier, according to a Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) survey.

The findings were published in the BBS’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Access and Use Survey report on Sunday (September 20).

The survey covered people aged five and above and collected quarterly data from 61,632 households across 2,568 randomly selected sample areas.

Despite the decline at the household level, individual internet use increased to 59.2 percent in April-June from 55 percent in the same period a year earlier. Individual mobile phone use also rose to 89.6 percent from 88.2 percent, while personal mobile phone ownership increased from 64.2 percent to 65.6 percent.

Smartphone use among households edged up to 75.1 percent from 74.8 percent over the same period. Overall household mobile phone ownership remained almost universal, rising marginally from 98.1 percent to 98.2 percent.

Traditional communication and entertainment devices continued to lose ground. Fixed-line telephone access fell to just 0.7 percent of households, while radio ownership declined from 16 percent to 15.3 percent. Television ownership, however, increased from 59.1 percent to 60.1 percent.

The BBS survey also points to affordability as a major barrier to digital inclusion. An earlier BBS survey found that 43.6 percent of respondents cited high internet costs as a reason for not using the service, with the problem particularly pronounced among rural and low-income populations.

Internet use was most common for searching for government job notices, at 64 percent, followed by seeking sports-related information at around 50 percent. Online purchases remained relatively limited, with only 11.6 percent using the internet to buy goods or services.