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Grameenphone

telecommunications company in Bangladesh

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 22, 2026
Entity authorityQ1784973 ↗
Source-derived summary

Grameenphone Limited, widely abbreviated as (d/b/a) GP, is a mobile telecommunications service provider in Bangladesh. As of 2026, its subscribers span over 84.33 million, making it Bangladesh's largest mobile network and telecommunications conglomerate by both revenue and users. It is a joint venture between Norwegian government-owned Telenor and Bangladeshi Grameen Telecom. Telenor owns 55.8% of Grameenphone, Grameen Telecom owns 34.2%, and the remaining 10% is publicly held. As of 2026, Grameenphone is Bangladesh's most valuable company with a market cap of more than 339.1 billion BDT or 2.77 billion USD (approximately).

History

Iqbal Quadir, established Grameenphone to provide universal mobile access across Bangladesh, including its rural regions. He was inspired by the Grameen Bank 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, Telenor. As part of this partnership, Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank, created Grameen Telecom to be a major shareholder of Grameenphone.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Grameenphone” as telecommunications company in Bangladesh. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Grameenphone, telecommunications and company.

Editorial reviewA useful synthesis for locating the documentary relationships between formal authority, participants and affected communities. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2026—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1997. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Grameenphone, telecommunications and company providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Grameenphone”, the useful work is to connect “telecommunications company in Bangladesh” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1784973. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2026.

Critical limits

Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Grameenphone”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Grameenphone primary sources, Grameenphone archive and Grameenphone research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Grameenphone”?
  2. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
  3. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Grameenphone” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.