Bhutan Telecom Infrastructure Market Trends, Statistics, and Telecom Tower Analysis

Market Overview

Reforms introduced by governments over the last two decades have dramatically changed the nature of telecommunications in Bhutan. The Bhutan government has been proactive in its efforts to transform Bhutan into a global telecommunication hub. The mobile market continues to be the main focus of the Bhutan telecom sector. Bhutan’s mobile market continues to get the bulk of local capital expenditure as the operators expand their infrastructure.

In the last few years, there has been a radical shift in the way data is produced and consumed. A number of government initiatives and regulations will see further increased in internet users and enforce strict data residency laws that will require vastly more data centre capacity. There will a rapid increase in the rate in which on-premise facilities are being outsourced to third- party data centres, as the cloud computing, especially cloud computing continues to grow.

Bhutan has a huge national telecommunications network. A strong increase in telecom subscribers base has necessitated network expansion covering a wider area, thereby creating a need for significant investment in telecom infrastructure. Bhutan's telecom industry is expected to see a major expansion of its network infrastructure during the 2019 to 2022 period. The top mobile operators are now planning to extend coverage to address a surge in data consumption. The fixed line market in Bhutan remains highly underdeveloped due to the dominance of the mobile segment. Further, the number of fixed telephone lines is slowly declining as the mobile segment continues to expand.

As well as its huge national network, Bhutan’s investment in telecommunications infrastructure over the last decade has extended to a heavy involvement in the international market. Although fixed-line services continued to be an important element within the national infrastructure, expansion in this segment of the market has seriously stalled as the demand has shifted to mobile services. The push to extend basic telephone services across the country has seen extensive use of Wireless Local Loop (WLL) services. At the same time, the government has strongly supported two programs specifically designed to extend coverage.

Infrastructure sharing was considered crucial for faster rollout of base stations across Bhutan’s vast interior, much of which was difficult to access because of poor roads and lack of electricity. The industry subsequently saw significant restructuring of infrastructure businesses with operators creating and, in some cases, hiving off these units. There was also an increased willingness to use other companies to build infrastructure. Communications towers were central to this business.
A number of government initiatives and regulations will see further increased in internet users and enforce strict data residency laws that will require vastly more data centre capacity. Rapid yearly increased in the volume of data being processed and growing demand for data localization has led to a high level of investment in new data centres.