Allow New Mobile Operators

Allow new mobile operators to enter So that consumers feel much better.

Bangladesh Telecom Regulatory Commission (BTRC) is going to hold hearing on the services provided by telecom operators on May 8. Prior to national election, it successfully abolished the 3-day data pack and made 7-day the minimum validity period. It retains the 30-day and unlimited validity packs. Consumers, however, pay a higher price for new validity packs. In general, prices of all data packs increased. Many operators lost small duration clients ,but made significant gains in profits in the first quarter of the current fiscal year. News reports divulged that GrameenPhone earned Taka 13.38 billion profit in the first three months. Meanwhile, Robi earned Taka 1.70 billion profit during the same period. It is important to note that Telenor and Axiata merged their Asian operations. So both the operators should be treated as same.

I used Teletalk for a long time as it offered the cheapest service in the country. But one week after the national election, quality of its service deteriorated. After making complaints, I did not see any improvement and I switched to other operators. Prior to using Teletalk, I interchangeably used various operators ,depending on which one offered the competitive prices. Many operators offered insurance for mobile phones in case they got damaged or new phone devices along with their SIMs. Sometimes later I discovered that far too often my phone got dead. I needed to run to a mobile servicing shop to flush/reinstall the operating software. Most of the time this happened while using the service of an operator based in Egypt. Another time it happened with another operator that offered freebasics, free internet service offered by Facebook. After paying between Taka 3000 and 4000 as mobile servicing fee for fixing my hacked phone in the span of three years,I thought it was time to change my phone. Back then Teletalk offered the most attractive services. And in the last two years I did not have to run for mobile servicing. I do not want to blame the operators directly for the hacking of phones. When we use browsers or internet,developers with ill intentions may target the mobile phones and infect them with malicious add-ons or software. Sometimes deranged individual within an operator may do sabotage act. But with the Teletalk I didn't have this kind of experience. I lost telepoints,balance and uncarried data. On some occasions ,I got back missing telepoints and balance after complaining to the highest level. On some occasions, I didn't get back anything. The horrifying experience of mobile servicing forced me later to document every telephone service mishap happened to me and report back to proper authority including the BTRC. In the last two and half years ,I did not have to spend much as I was using the cheapest service offered by public telecom operator. Later I learned Teletalk network expansion had been mostly done with Chinese credit and it owes a lot of money to public company and other vendors. Government is planning to sell part of its share to make it profitable again. I think the merger between Telenor and Axiata did a lot of damage to the services offered by the operators. Both the operators, followed by others, offered the identical services at the same price after that merger. Nowadays operators make hefty profits by selling internet data. But as consumers we don't know how to measure the data we consumed. I wrote a detailed piece about mobile data packs few years back. So I don't want to highlight the issue any more. The point is allowing few more operators or selling new licenses to operators originating from countries with huge trade potentials could make the telecom market competitive again. If we allow availing the service of railway optical fiber network and satellite internet along with the license ,then more investors feel encouraged to step forward. Prior to election, a Telenor director in an interview with a local daily hinted to wind up their operations here. But few weeks ago GrameenPhone boss in an interview told they made a u-turn on that decision and decided to stay. It is a good news,otherwise we will see another round of increase in the prices of telecom services.

BTRC has to take fair share of the blame. It failed to stop the merger between operations of Telenor and Axiata here in Bangladesh. For more than a decade telecom operators remained top revenue source of the government. How could BTRC allow such merger inside Bangladesh? It directly affected the revenue earning in this sector. Look at the first three quarter of the profits of the two( or same) operators. BTRC should make a regulation about publishing details about unused data in a year. Because consumers pay for data but some data remain unused and do not carry forward. So they have right to know what the operators do with that data. This may fall into wrong hands or be used in wrong purposes. Operators should disclose what amount of data remains unused and what they do with that. I think it should be given back to consumers as bonus or special offers or to offer welfare services like free internet for education/social awareness/alleviating digital divide. Nowadays we see telecom, real estate regulatory bodies like RAJUK are being headed by military men. I completely oppose this practice as those who lack transparency and accountability could not call into question others integrity. In that light BTRC simply cannot charge operators Taka 10 for some of the data collection activities it intends to undertake. In some hearings BTRC survey report justified abolishing short duration data pack. Contrary to the survey report, many news reports divulged that many consumers were unhappy with such idea. In this case one may doubt that findings are predetermined. I think Parliamentary committee should be given the task to steer the activities of BTRC and anti-trust activities in telecom services. In functioning democracies, Parliament plays a greater role in such case. We know we have problems here but we should start the practice and rely less on men-in-fatigue. It is a surprise that many agencies failed to anticipate the biggest merger in the telecom industry that happened in Malaysia, where many former senior army personnel and their relatives took refuge. Look at the strategic ties with Qatar. Despite commitment of boots-on-the-ground, Qatar bluntly refused to sell LNG on deferred payment. And the decision of strategic ties with Qatar was taken by few sidestepping the Parliament. Let's come back to point. We need new telecom operators to give a relief to the consumers and to augment the govt revenue.