Country's leading mobile phone company Grameen Phone (GP), which has a 11 million subscription base, has laid bare a plan to pump in more than Tk2100 crore to improve its network ensuring a world class service.

To make cell phone more affordable, the company aims at cutting tariffs further in future.

It is also working on floating shares in the capital market.

“The GP will be the first mobile phone company to be listed in the securities market," hoped Erik Aas, the managing director and chief executive officer.

He was talking exclusively with The Daily Star on Thursday.

Focusing on VoIP (voice over internet protocol) licensing debate, where local Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have raised the demand for limiting the licenses within the local companies, Aas said such license should be given to the companies well equipped with telephone technology, adding that ISPs cannot ensure a quality job as they don't have that expertise.

Arguing that the debate is focused on a wrong point, Aas said, “VoIP is not just about money. If it's only about moneythen keep it within the Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB). If the BTTB can't handle it alone, then those who can do it should be allowed to operate.”

Had Bangladesh a large international gateway to meet its calling demand, the VoIP issue would not have come up. In absence of an adequate gateway facility, VoIP technology was being used illegally, he noted.

“So we want gateway and interconnection between mobile phones and the BTTB. We only have 5 million interconnections with the BTTB against our 11 million client base,” the GP top brass went on.

He said GP could help the BTTB in making a better gateway.

“If the international call system is improved, which is in a bad shape now, the nation's productivity would be better and it would give a boost to business," he added.

On the cut in call charges, Aas said they cut down tariffs by about 70 percent in the last two years and the rate now reached about Tk1.5 per minute on an average.

He said they are looking forward to cutting charges further shortly.

“Not so many people now complain about high tariff. Our night tariff is very lowonly 30 paisa. That's why we are experiencing a network difficulty at night. Sudden cut in charges has led to this problem. But this will go soon. We are laying emphasis on cheap and quality services,” he added.

Responding to a question, he claimed GP is not repatriating profits by hundreds of millions of

dollars. In fact, majority of GP's revenue is being pumped back as investment into building a countrywide mobile network.

"We hope to resolve all the network related problemsincluding midnight connectivity problem, lack of indoor network and highway and high rise location coverage," saidAas.

In the last two years, the GP has invested about Tk 4000 crore. "This investment will go much higher," he added.

GP believes that Bangladesh needs to increase its gateway 10 times the present capacity, Aas opined.

Another pressing issue for improvement in services of all the mobile phone companies is the spectrum allocation (or frequency allocation for telephony), according to the GP CEO.

While the GP has 11 million users, it has been allocated a level of spectrum similar to the one enjoyed by another company having less than 300,000 users, he lamented, adding that an older company, which has political influence, is blessed with the highest allocation of spectrum it has not been able to use for many years.

“Spectrum is a natural resource. This should be distributed as per the number of customers each company is serving,” Eric Aas pointed out.

On profit repatriation, he said GP never transferred hundreds of millions of dollars abroad as dividend of shareholders.

"The true picture is that the GP shareholders between 1997 and 2007 took 88 million US dollars only, while the company invested 1.15 billion dollars," he said.