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GP hopes to reach two million subscribers mark this month

Company managing director talks to JaBy ^tar

MUSTAK HOSSAIN
GrameenPhone Limited, the country's leading cellphone provider, yesterday said its subscribers base nearly doubled to 1.95 million in a year.
This is excellent growth and the company expects to reach two million subscribers base this month, GP Managing Director Ola Ree told The Daily Star in an interview.
He said the mobile phone market of Bangladesh with more than 130 million people has the potential to grow up to 15 million users in three years.
GP, which uses GSM (global system for mobile communications) technology, had one million users at the end of August last year.
"We had a plan to celebrate the two million subscribers mark on August 18 as we did on August 17 last year on reaching one million mark but the devastating floods
have slowed down the pace of growth," he said.
"We had to struggle to keep the network uninterrupted and we could not supply SIM (subscriber identity module) and handsets to different sales centres due to the devastating deluge," Ree said.
He attributed the growth to efficient service at affordable prices with the largest network coverage.
Ree said it was a commendable decision on part of the government to reduce tax on mobile handsets but pointed out that tariff on different telecoms equipment continues to remain high.
Some of the South Asian countries have drastically lowered the import duty on telecoms equipment between 10 and 15 percent while the duty in Bangladesh remains as high as 62 percent.
Asked whether GP has plans to reduce call charges, Ree said his company has reduced call charges
Ola Ree
and offered special packages to different segments.
Since inception of the GP in 1997, telecoms companies are the only utility service providers who have reduced charges despite devaluation of local currency but
tariffs of all other utility services have gone up, he said.
He said the government should lower the import duty on telecoms equipment as telephone works as the backbone for the growth of information and communications technology.
The MD said the government should take effective steps to legalise internet telephony. "It is sad that the VoIP (voice over internet protocol) issue still remains unresolved despite cabinet approval."
GP holds about 60 percent market share of the country's three million mobile phone customers. Other three companies share the remaining 40 percent.
GP's network covers 40 percent of the population and the company, which invested $160 million in network expansion this year, hopes to expand its network coverage all over the country by 2007.