Afterword

ThimphuTech was the first technology blog in Bhutan. We started writing it in 2009, just as broadband and mobile internet started to take off. (Although internet in Bhutan was launched in 1999, it was either super-slow or super-expensive, and was only used by a selected few).

In the blog, we wrote about technology and food, but also about plenty of other stuff. The blog became popular and influential in Bhutan. A companion bi-weekly column -- Ask Boaz -- was published for many years in the Kuensel, Bhutan's national newspaper. (The complete Kuensel columns are available as an ebook, Blogging with Dragons).

We stopped updating the blog when we left Bhutan in 2014, but the information within the posts can still prove useful, and thus we decided to keep it online.

We thank all our readers.
Tashi Delek,
Boaz & Galit.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Finally, 3G is Available Beyond Thimphu

Bhutan Telecom has turned on the 3G switch in P/Ling. This is an important event. Fast mobile broadband is an effective way of closing the rural broadband gap. With 3G, people will have access to faster Internet wherever they are. While P/Ling is still an urban centre, this serves as a good proof of concept. Hopefully, 3G will eventually reach all B-Mobile customers.

While the theoretical maximum 3G download speed is 3.6Mbps (almost 4 million bits per second), which makes it possible to download a 3-minute song in about 10 seconds, it remains to be seen what the actual speed will be. Many factors affect the speed, including network congestion. For the time being, the bottleneck is Bhutan's international links. Once these are upgraded, we can expect higher download and upload speeds to international websites (Google, Facebook, BBC, etc).

How to test your speed? Check one of the following websites:
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