Country's telecom watchdog, Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), plans to grant licence to Warid Telecom to enable it to start operation as the sixth mobile phone operator in Bangladesh, informed sources said.
A senior BTRC official told The News Today that the Commission would grant licence to Warid Telecom International LLC, a concern of United Arab Emirates-based Dhabi Group, to commence operation in the country within a month after payment of non-refundable licence fee.
"We are expecting that Warid would start operation anytime in next nine months as per its commitment," the official said.
"Warid was selected because of its competitive call charge proposal, quick rollout plan and promise to invest in other sectors in the country," the official said.
A senior official of mobile phone operator, Banglalink, told this
reporter that they were expecting Warid Telecom to enter the existing market within next six weeks. "We want them to come into the market soon," he said, adding that it would be good for competition among the existing cellphone operators.
Warid, the United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based cell phone operator and the Jordan-based Omniah took part in the competitive process of the BTRC although 17 operators expressed interest initially.
Dhabi group, the owner of Warid, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Board of Investment in September to invest around USD 1 billion in telecom, tourism and pharmaceuticals sectors.
Bangladesh now has five cell phone operators – CityCell,
GrameenPhone, AKTEL, Banglalink in the private sector and Teletalk in the public sector serving as many as eight million subscribers. The number of cell-phone subscribers is on the rise in Bangladesh.
On the issue of granting new licences to cellular and PSTN phones, the BTRC official said that BTRC was not planning to issue any more licence to cellphone operators. "We are unable to grant any license to them because of lack of frequency," he mentioned.
He further said the commission would grant licences to more PSTN (landline) operators, adding that Dhaka Zone would also be brought under the purview of private PSTN operators after disposal of a case pending in court.
The official added that BTRC was considering introducing 3G (3
Generation) cellular phones in the country which would accelerate the MMS (Multimedia Messaging System) in the mobile phones. However, the source said that the BTRC was yet to take this decision because of the high expenditure involved in the system.
Asked about the sustainability of the existing frequency, the source told The News Today that private telecom operators would be able to bring in many more subscribers.
All the cellphone operators have been granted 900 and 1,800 Gigahertz bandwidth, and no more bandwidths could be further distributed to any other cellphone operator.
On the burning issue of network congestion, the BTRC official told this correspondent that they were much concerned about the issue as it was not fair that subscribers have to undergo so much sufferings. "We are in the process of hiring consultants who would help us prepare guidelines to significantly reduce network congestion," he added.
He said if these guidelines were implemented, the mobile phone operators would have to ensure a rate of call failure to the tune of 5-10 per cent, saying that the existing call failure rate in Bangladesh was around 80 percent compared to 5 per cent in neighbouring India. "All our initiatives will be taken considering the subscribers in mind," the official mentioned.
Source:
The News Today
Dhaka, Thursday, December 15, 2005
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