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BTTB Cellphone

Pvt operators given 5 days for interconnection

Mustak Hossain
While the telecoms ministry wants the country's private cellphone operators to provide connectivity to the state-owned BTTB's mobile phone service before its soft launch on December 15, industry sources fear the time, less than one week, is totally inadequate to establish the interconnections.
FROM PAGE 12
Ministry of Post and Telecommunications Secretary Mahmud Hassan Mansoor at a meeting yesterday asked with the four private carriers to take necessary steps to provide the connectivity before December 15, meetingsources said.
Representatives of Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC), Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB), GrameenPhone, CityCell service provider Pacific Bangladesh Telecom Limited, AKTEL service provider Telecom Malaysia International Bangladesh and Banglalink owner Ornscom Telecom attended the meet.
"The private operators don't have any objection to provide interconnection to the BTTB's mobile phone service," a meeting participant told The Daily Star.
But, he pointed out. according to the interconnection regime of BTRC, a new operator has to formally propose to the incumbent operators for inter-cgnnection and the latter get 90 days to consider and respond to the proposal. Things are simply not done in such a haste/ he remarked.
The ministry also wants every private operator to sign separate connectivity contract not with the BTTB but with Tele t alk’, the proposed company to run its mobile phone operation.
"How can we do that, when we are not yet aware that such a company exists?" exclaimed the industry source.
Officials at the private cellphone carriers said the BTTB is yet to inform them formally about the launching of its mobile phone venture or the company to operate it.
Under such circumstances, industry sources fear, the BTTB may have to stage the soft launch of its mobile phone service without interconnection with the private operators.
Interconnection is a facility that
enables an operator to get access to another operator’s network.
The four private cellphone operators have invested some $2.69 million in the BTTB’s network to enhance its interconnection capacity. Canadian equipment vendor Nortel Networks installed lite switching gear while Japanese Fujitsu Ltd provided the transmission equipment for the venture
Currently about 90 percent of the country’s cellphone users arc not able to access the fixed line network due to scarcity of interconnection.