The Bhutanese Leading the way.
On 4th March 2025 the Prime Minister Dasho Tshering Tobgay said the Cabinet has approved the slashing of mobile phone data charges by 50%.
There was no timeline or details given beyond this leading to questions.
This paper has learnt that it will take another 3 to 4 months before this can be implemented, and so far, only Bhutan Telecom is on board.
The GovTech Agency, under the direction of the Cabinet, has been tasked with leading and implementing the data reduction initiative.
A GovTech official said that they are working with the Telcos, and has written to Bhutan Telecom (BT) and is currently awaiting a response.
“Hopefully, we will be able to achieve something soon. We are also mindful of congestion which could impact quality of service for everyone, and therefore, we are working closely with them,” said the GovTech official.
The GovTech letter to BT is to start preparing for the reduction. According to a source, BT will present the letter from Gov Tech along with the Cabinet directives and seek approval from its Board.
The BT Board has the DHI CEO as the Chairman, Education Secretary, a MoICE Director, a Gov Tech Director, a private sector Director and another member from DHI.
Once the Board grants its approval, the next move for BT will be to enhance its network capacity, which will mean installing new mobile towers and enhancing the capacity of the current ones. This will take time as towers have to be first ordered and then installed.
The main fear within BT is that once the rates are slashed by half, the usage could really go up and congest the network.
BT will also take a big hit in revenue and profits. In 2024 it earned Nu 6 billion (bn) from data charges with a Nu 2 bn profit. Once the data charges are halved, this profit will come down to around Nu 46 million (mn).
In the earlier stages, talks were also on with Tashi Cell, but Tashi Cell is no longer involved in the discussions.
The government cannot direct a private company to slash rates, so the aim is to first get BT to reduce rates and the calculation is that Tashi Cell and others will follow.
One of the broader measures that the GovTech is looking at to reduce prices is try and get all of the imported bandwidth of the country from one or two vendors so that the price can be brought down using the higher volume.
BT has around 60% of the mobile data market, with around 450,000 subscribers and Tashi Cell has around 40% of the market.
Bhutan currently has around 20 internet and data providers serving approximately 700,000 subscribers and 21,000 leased internet lines.
The prices of internet leased lines had been slashed by around 50% a few years ago.
