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Mobile operators to open battle in hill districts

Md Hasan
The country’s mobile phone operators have been given a new opportunity to intensify their rivalry as they battle to win customers in hill districts that are to be opened for mobile telephony.
Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed yesterday in Rangamati announced a government decision to allow cellphone network in Chittagong hill tracts.
The government however will allow mobile phone services in municipal areas of the three hill districts, once troubled by tribal insurgency that ended following the December 2, 1997 peace accord between the government and Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samity.
The cellular phone companies now have their network coverage in 61 districts out of 64. The mobile phone services were introduced in the country more than one and a half decades ago.
The hill districts-- Rangamati, Khagrachhari and Bandarban - - have a population of around 1.4 million.
The government restricted the use of mobile phones in the hill districts, fearing that network connection in the region might be a serious threat to the law and order situation there.
Welcoming the government decision, the country’s leading mobile phone operator Garmeenphone’s Chief Executive Officer Anders Jensen said, "We welcome this decision by the government and we look forward to providing quality mobile phone services to the people of this region."
“The Grameenphone nationwide network already covers 98 percent of the population and we will bring the Chittagong Hill Tracts region within the coverage of the GP network as soon as possible," he said.
After the present caretaker government took over the policymakers initiated moves to introduce mobile telephonyin the region.
The Bangladesh Telecommunication and Regulatory Commission (BTRC) also initiated some moves to allow mobile phone services in the districts of about 13,184 sq km, which is approximately one-tenth of the total area of Bangladesh.
“From June last year BTRC started its work to allow mobile services in the hill areas,” said a high official of the commission.
The official said the chief adviser's announcement will help the country's mobile industry to achieve the target of having 50 million customers by the end of2008.
The army and the security agencies have also made a very positive response to the proposal to allow mobile operators to provide services in the three hill districts, the official said.
According to the latest figures released by the BTRC, up to February 2008, the number of total mobile phone subscribers reached 37.55 million, increased by 68 percent compared to the same period a year earlier.
The total mobile phone subscriber was 22.38 million by the end of February 2007.
hasan@thedailystar.net