Wireless Federation

According to a local media report, Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) allocated a 17.5MHz block of additional wireless spectrum to the three largest mobile operators in the country.

As per the allocation:

Grameenphone- 7.4 MHz
Banglalink-5.1MHz
AKTEL-5MHz

The addidtional frequencies that will help to relieve the congestion will cost the operators USD11.9 million per MHz.

Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News

One of the Asia’s fastest-growing cellular market, Bangladesh, adds up a total of 1.1 million new subscribers in July, lifting the user base to 44.8 million. According to a telecom regulatar data, top operator Grameenphone, controlled by Norway’s Telenor which is gearing up for a $300 million public offer, raised its subscriber base to 20.84 million in July from 20.31 million in June. Aktel (begs third position), majority owned by Telekom Malaysia International has added 130,000 users, taking its user base to 7.98 million at end-July. Warid Telecom International of the United Arab Emirates, which launched its Bangladesh operations in May 2007 has closed july with 3.48 million users from 3.31 million. City Cell (Only CDMA carrier) a joint venture between Pacific Bangladesh Telecom Ltd and Singapore Telecommunication shows a dip in users numbers which is 1.67 million in July from 1.70 million in June.

Even the number of mobile phone users grows nearly 58 percent in 2007 to 34.4 million. This increase in number of mobile phone users is basically helped by competitive tariffs and cheap handsets said Bangladesh Telecom Regulatory Commission. Mobile phone services are one of an important contributor to the cash-strapped nation’s economy. Several market surveys have forecasted that the number of mobile phone users will be around 70 million at the end of 2011.

Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News

An official from the Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC), quoted by Independent-Bangladesh, says that the regulator will auction three international voice gateway exchange operating licences by mid-February. The commission is currently choosing a shortlist from the 42 private sector applications it received after launching a tender in October 2007. ‘We are expecting to complete the evaluation by the end of this month and put the licences under hammer in mid-February,’ said the official. The international voice telephony sector is currently a monopoly of state-run Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB).

The auction will be based on open bids, with participants bidding for the percentage of the revenue to be shared with the BTRC. Bidding will start at sharing 25% of revenues with the regulator, and each successive bid will have to be incrementally higher by 0.25%. The watchdog has also set an additional acquisition fee of BDT150 million (USD2.2 million) for each 15-year licence, which include an option for renewal after every five years subject to the BTRC’s approval. All three international gateways will be located in Dhaka and must be open to lawful interception by intelligence agencies.

The three successful bidders must launch services within four months of licensing, and will initially provide access to international networks through Bangladesh’s only submarine fibre link, the SEA-ME-WE 4 cable. Back-up connectivity will be provided via satellite earth station until an alternative submarine cable is available. Under the BTRC’s International Long Distance Telecommunication Services Policy 2007, approved by the government last August, the licensing will be followed by a second phase interconnecting local exchanges to the international gateways and access network service (ANS) providers, and a final stage enabling private ANS providers to offer direct services, such as VoIP telephony, to end-users. The Policy also stipulates that only companies owned by Bangladeshi citizens resident in the country are eligible to obtain licences, whilst barring the existing private sector mobile, fixed line and internet service providers from applying.

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A total of 42 firms have submitted bids for setting up three international gateway exchanges in the private sector to route overseas calls to and from Bangladesh, said officials of the Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission. The deadline for submission of bids was 4 December. Officials said that 65 firms bought application forms from the BTRC, which invited the bids in October. The new gateway exchanges will break the monopoly of the Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board in the international call business. Applicants need to be resident in Bangladesh, while existing telecom service providers were banned from the bidding.

Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News

The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission has made certain tarrif regulations for telecom operators. The commission is in the process of formulating a comprehensive ‘Tariff Regulation’ in consultation with all stakeholders in the telecom industry. The regulations include call charges, which will be bounded by a circuit between BDT 2.00 per minute and BDT 0.25 per minute, irrespective of any promotion, any package, any network, timing, pulse and F&F. There should also be uniformity in the tariff plans offered in different locations. The other regulations include limitation of promotional tariffs for a period of two consecutive months or less, no migration charges can be applied if an existing subscriber desires to migrate to a new promotion package, and if bonus airtime/talk time is granted as reward in a package, such bonus facility will be applicable for off-net call purpose only. The provisions are interim in nature and would remain effective until further order.

Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News

The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) says it is planning to grant licences to private fixed line network operators in the capital Dhaka by the end of this month. ‘We are prepared to issue licences to private [land line] companies to operate in the central zone (the designated telecoms zone including the city). We expect to offer the licences by the end of this month,’ BTRC Chairman Major General (Retired) Manjurul Alam told reporters. ‘All of the companies are interested to operate in Dhaka as the profit margin is higher here. We will tag a condition that any company interested to operate in Dhaka is obliged to expand their activities nationwide and this is mandatory,’ said the chairman. Any company failing to expand its activities outside Dhaka as per its plan submitted to the Commission will face a heavy fine, he added. The authority is yet to publish final details of licence fees and the number of concessions up for grabs. The BRTC also confirmed that it would not renew any existing licence of operators that had failed to launch services in the city – presumably referring to WorldTel, the British Virgin Islands-registered firm which was issued with a fixed licence concession in July 2001 but has delayed a promised launch of CDMA WiLL-based limited mobility PSTN services ever since. According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms database, despite the successful licensing and launch of a host of new fixed line and fixed-wireless operators in all other areas of the country, an estimated 250,000 Dhaka residents are still waiting for a fixed connection, with incumbent Bangladesh Telegraph & Telephone Board (BTTB) unable to meet demand. The central metropolitan zone, covering Dhaka city, Zinjira, Savar, Narayanganj, Gazipur and Tongi, accounts for over half of Bangladesh’s telecoms demands, according to the BTRC. According to GlobalComms, provincial private WiLL operators itching to meet the ready demand in the capital include Telebarta (Jubok Phone), National TeleCom (NationalPhone), Peoples Telecom (PeoplesTel), GEP Telecom, OneTel Communications, Ranks Telecom (RanksTel), Jalalabad Telecom (Bijoy Phone), Banglaphone, Westec (Bay Phones) and SA Telecom.

Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News

has emerged as one of

’s top 10 mobile phone markets in terms of adding net subscribers, according to the chairman of GSM Asia Pacific, a regional forum of the Generalised System of Multiple Access (GSMA) mobile operators, reports BDNEWS.
GSM Asia Pacific Chairman Mehboob Chowdhury warned that though Bangladesh the 8th top mobile market in Asia, ahead of Thailand and Philippines, it would be impossible to retain that position unless the government immediately purged the industry of the ‘counterproductive’ policies and shook up the telecom regulators.
Besides, the country has added 8.945 million GSMA mobile users in a single year — from July 2005 to June 2006, according to the latest figure of GSMA association.
In an exclusive interview with the news agency, Chowdhury disclosed thatnow ranked eighth among the top 10 Asian mobile markets in terms of adding net subscribers during January to March, 2006.
Citing the data of Informal Telecoms and Media, a London-based research firm, he saidhas had 1.265 million new users during the first quarter of 2006. The figure is slightly lower than the net addition ofandcombined, and marginally lower than seventh-ranked’s first quarter intake.
, fifth on the list, has added more than two million mobile subscribers during this period, but its total clientele was smaller than whathad in the first quarter of 2006.
GSM Asia Pacific chairman credited the cellular mobile operators with this achievement while being critical of the government’s ‘pounding the industry with disruptive policies’.
“When the operators made new connections affordable and started slashing the call charges; the government came up with this disastrous tax last year. It was a bolt from the blue (for the operators) that slowed down the market for a while.”
The new 8.945 million GSMA mobile users that have putin the global map is the result of the operators’ continuous effort, Chowdhury pointed out.
The new customers belong to the middle-to-lower income bracket that have been perennially ‘harassed’ by the state-run Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) in trying to get regular phone connections.
“The private sector has salvaged them and that’s why the subscribers identity module (SIM) tax is grossly an anti-people move, which the government should scrap ahead of the election.”
“The market could have added at least four million more customers, there could have been an euphoric outbreak of tariff war and the government could have earned more revenue from the boom (if the tax were not there)”, Chowdhury continued.
Liking the slapping of SIM tax to killing the golden goose, he said this testifies to ‘the government’s inability’ to understand the fundamentals of this business.
He refused to give the government much credit for slashing the tax from mobile phone handsets.
“The amount of tax the government has withdrawn from handset is the exact amount it has simultaneously imposed as SIM tax and the burden remains unchanged for new customers”, pointed out Chowdhury, who was GrameenPhone’s marketing director for five years and Banglalink’s Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) for nearly a year until resigning recently .
He said more than two billion people use GSM mobile phones worldwide, accounting for an 82.4 per cent penetration. Asia Pacific region alone boasts 757.13 million GSMA mobile users and the figure is fast growing.
“Every second 18 new GSM users are being added worldwide, which means more than 1,000 customers in every minute and over 1.5 million new GSMA mobile users per day.”
Chowdhury said the next billion GSMA customers are mostly coming from,,,,,,and other similar economies.
He recognised continuous investment as the key component for sustainable mobile phone market growth in.
Effective telecommunications regulatory regime is, however, the precondition to wooing new investments and boosting competition.
“The Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC) has become merely an extension of the taxation department and that is certainly not the case with,or”, he said.
“[And] That’s why the telecom markets of these South Asian countries have been consistently thriving.”
More than 85 per cent of the mobile phone users have no access to the largest fixed telephone operator BTTB, the state-owned monopoly that has little relevance in today’s mobile market, Chowdhury regretted.
“The mobile operators will not even bother to talk to the BTTB the moment the government ends its monopoly on the international voice gateway”, he predicted.
The BTTB’s denial to provide interconnection is a clear breach of the telecoms law and resents the regulator’s ‘unfair concession’ for BTTB on this issue, the former Banglalink CCO said.
The government is ‘draining’ public funds on ‘impractical projects’ like VoIP platforms, he complained.
“Besides, ignoring the country’s fundamental telecommunication needs, the government is going to waste hundreds of millions of dollars in highly debatable and grossly unproductive supplier’s credit telecoms schemes”, he added.
The government has to deploy reliable nationwide telecoms infrastructure and then ensure the private sector’s equitable access to that resource, Chowdhury suggested.
“This is what Pakistan, India and many other fast developing countries are doing and Bangladesh should waste no time to reinvent the wheel”, he remarked.

Source- http://www.financialexpress-bd.com

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