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GP reaches 3m subscribers

Star Business Report
GrameenPhone has reached three million subscribers, the country's leading cellphone operator announced yesterday.
This is extremely exciting, and we are very happy that as many as three million users until now have made GrameenPhone their preferred mobile phone service provider." said Brik Aas, CEO of GrameenPhone Ltd. in a statement issued by Telenor, which owns 55.5 percent share of the company.
GP has been facing severe competition after Egyptian telecoms giant Orascom Telecoms acquired Sheba Telecom and state-owned Teletalk rolled out its services. Both the companies offered competitive call tariffs. Teletalk created a huge buzz in the sector with its free incoming facility from fixed-line phones of Bangladesh Telegraph
and Telephone Board (Bl IB), analysts said.
Telecom Malaysia International Bangladesh, the operator of Aktel. also emerged as an aggressive operator following the changing scenario from its "conservatively aggressive" image.
GrameenPhone. which started operations in Bangladesh in 1997, took six years to reach the one million subscribers’ mark in August 2003, about one more year to reach two million in September 200-1 and just about six months to attain the pres-entthree millionsubscribers1 mark.
GP will celebrate its three million subscribers' base through a functiontomorrow.
The country's mobile telephone penetration rate, which is still one of the lowest in the world with less than four telephones per 100 people, remained such low due to high call tariffs. Mobile phone tariff in India is one of the lowest in the world and
around 50 percent cheaper than tariffs in neighbouring countries such as Sri Lanka. Pakistan and Bangladesh, according to Telecom Regulatory Authorityof India (Trai).
India's low rates owe much to its strong growth of mobile phone services. Mobile phone calls cost USS 0.03- 0.04 per minute in India against USS 0.08-1 per minute in Pakistan, USS 0.11 per minute in Sri Lanka and over USS 0.14 per minute in the Maldives. In Nepal and Bangladesh, mobile phone calls cost USS 0.065 per minute.
Bangladesh is an attractive market for mobile phone services due to its large population of around 140 million but still the mobile phone penetration rate here is very low, according to Swedish telecoms equipment manufacturer Ericsson. The potential of adding new subscribers in Bangladesh is enormous. It is estimated that the number of
mobile phone subscribers in Bangladesh will reach around 15 million by the end of 2007," said Kristian Tear, presidentofEricsson's South East Asia, recently.
GR with the widest coverage in Bangladesh, is planning to increase the network coverage to 80 percent of the population from the current 55 percent within this year. The company has also recently started to install 1800 MHz. frequency base stations in addition to the GSM 900 MHz stationsnowin use.
"This will greatly improve the quality and call-handling capacity of the base stations and will further improve the overall customer experience," said ErikAas.
The internationally acclaimed Village Phone Program of GrameenPhone is another unique initiative, which provides telephone services in remote niral areas where nosuch facilities existed before.