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Bangla Phone dying in neglect of BTRC

Sharier Khan
The operations of Bangla Phone, a PSTN company that invested Tk 134 crore to set up its telecom network, has remained suspended for the last two years due to hostile stance of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) against the company and legal tangles.
The BTRC's is choking the company with its inflexible and stubborn stance and restrictions and non-coopcration. This led Bangla Phone to lay off 57 staffs recently. When the company started commercial operations in 2006 it had 251 staffs including some PhD holders and Buet engineers.
"A hundred more will lose jobs soon if such stagnation continues," says Managing Director of Bangla Phone Amjad Khan who is waiting for the BTRC to change its stance and empathise with the woes of the investor.
Bangla Phone, a public switch telephone network (PSTN) company and an investment of non-resident Bangladeshis, became the BTRC's eyesore in early 2007 as the company was found to be concentrating more on provid-
ing backend service to leading telecom operators with its 2000km optical fibre network rather than its subscription base.
The phone company only has 26 subscribers. Again, the base became handicapped as the company can no longer provide the necessary equipment to customers since mid 2007 as the BTRC stopped issuing no objection certificates (NOC) to the company for release of any imported equipment from customs.
While Bangla Phone claimed itself to be perfectly lawful in providing backend services, the BTRC took a hard stance believing that the phone company was doing business out of its jurisdiction.
Following a series of disputes, the BTRC on July 24, 2008, issued a letter to other telecom operators to stop using Bangla Phone's connections. This prompted Bangla Phone to obtain a three-month stay order on the letter.
In October, the High Court upheld BTRC's authority in issuing such a letter and asked Bangla Phone to submit fresh application to the BTRC for connectivity with other phone operators outside its PSTN licensed area. The BTRC's hard stance discouraged Bangla Phone to seek any fresh permission, sources said.
Since May 2007, the BTRC has issued two show cause notices asking the company why its licence should not be cancelled as it set up optical fibre network outside its licensed area.
Bangla Phone believes building the network does not go against the tenns and conditions of tne PSTN licence issued to it in 2004. A High Court verdict, based on a wnt petition against BTRC'sshowcause notices, last year substantiated Bangla Phone's claim.
Tne High Court, in its verdict on July 13, said clause 10.01 and amended schedule 2 of the PSTN licence allowed Bangla Phone to establish optical fibre network outside its operational zone. The court said the BTRC must adhere to the tenns and conditions of the PSTN licence.
Since it began commercial operation in 2006-07, Bangla Pnone earnedTk 14 crore in revenue and paid the government Tk 2.53 crore in VAT, tax and duties.
The company was awarded PSTN licence for North East Zone of the country and a countrywide Domestic Data Communication Service Provider (DDCSP) licence. Interestingly, in June last
year, the BTRC converted 26 DDCSP licences to national ISP (internet service provider) licences except for the one that belonged to Bangla Phone.
Bangla Phone last year filed two more writ petitions, one against the its non-issuance of NOC against release of equipment and another for BTRC’s intervention into and foiling the deal between Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board, now Bangladesh Telephone Company Ltd (BTCL), for swapping fibre-optic lines between Chittagong and Cox's Bazar.
Both the petitions are pending with the High Court
As of December 2008, a dozen PSTN operators serve only 13.44 lakh subscribers whereas six mobile phone operators deal with 4.47 crore. Of the total number of PSTN subscribers the BTCL alone has 8.72 lakh subscribers.
Due to lack of incentives from the BTRC, the 11 other PSTN companies that have invested aroundTk 2,000 crore are dealing with very slow growth and tight market. Leading PSTN companies are Ranks Telecom (1.52 lakh subscribers), Dhaka Telecom and Peoples Telecom (0.61 lakh each), Telebarta (0.56 lakh) and NationalTelecom (0.54 lakh).