Commercial operation of BTTB mobile starts tomorrow

Thu Mar 31, 2005 4:12 am            

The state-owned mobile phone company Teletalk Bangladesh Limited is finally set to launch its commercial operation tomorrow with a revised tariff rate after missing several deadlines.

‘If everything goes accordingly, we are hopeful of launching the service on due date,’ the Teletalk managing director, Mohammad Obaidullah, told New Age on Tuesday.

The cell phone company has already lowered the call tariff from its original rate announced earlier, and the new rate will be effective with launching of the service, said Teletalk officials.

The Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission on Monday approved the revised tariff for Teletalk, the fifth mobile phone company in Bangladesh.

The officials said the company cut the tariff following widespread criticism inside the government and the media after the posts and telecommunications minister, Aminul Haq, formally announced the call tariff at a press conference on December 30, 2004.

They also said tough competition in the sector also forced the company to cut the tariff even before its launching because it feared to lose the battle with other operators in the ongoing price war.

As per the revised tariff plan, the Teletalk will sell the prepaid connection at a cost of Tk 1,800 including Tk 300 for calling card, and the post-paid at Tk 3,000 including Tk 1,000 as deposit. Access fee for the post-paid connection is Tk 300 a month.

Earlier the connection fee was fixed at Tk 3,000 and Tk 4,500 for the prepaid and post-paid respectively.

In the revised tariff plan for the prepaid connection, the company will now charge Tk 3.60 at peak hours (8:00am to 8:00pm), Tk 2.40 at off-peak hours (8:00pm to 12:00am and 6:00am to 8:00am), and Tk 0.60 at super off-peak hours (12:00am to 6:00am) per minute for a call from Teletalk to Teletalk, and Teletalk to other mobiles.

The charge for a minute at super off-peak hours for a call from Teletalk to other mobiles will be Tk 1.

In its earlier tariff plan, the company fixed call charge for the prepaid connection at Tk 4 at peak hours and Tk 2.60 at off-peak hours.

In the post paid connection, it will now charge for a per minute call at Tk 3, Tk 2, and Tk 0.60 in a zone respectively at peak, off-peak and super off-peak hours, and Tk 3.60, Tk 2.40, and Tk 0.60 at peak, off-peak and super off-peak hours respectively for inter-zonal.

In its earlier tariff plan, Teletalk fixed Tk 3 and Tk 2 per minute at peak and off-peak hours respectively in a zonal call, and Tk 5 and Tk 4 per minute at peak and off-peak hours respectively in inter zonal call.

The denominations of the calling card are Tk 300, Tk 500, and Tk 1,000 with validity of 60 days, 120 days, and 240 days respectively along with only incoming facility in the last 10 days.

The company will charge Tk 1 for per short message service.

The mobile phone company will have both ways BTTB connectivity, and there will be no incoming charge for a call to be made from BTTB landline phone.

Obaidullah said the mobile connection will be sold through Ramna, Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, Gulshan, and Uttara branches of the BASIC Bank in the city and seven booths of the BTTB at Ramna one stop centre, Sher-e-Bangla Nagar one stop centre, and its divisional engineers’ offices at Uttara, Moghbazar, Nilkhet, Gulshan, and Mirpur.

The managing director said the subscribers can buy the connections from the designated places after submitting forms with two copies of passport size photograph, and paying the connection fees. However, the company will not sell any handset.

Total network would cover 55 district headquarters apart from some national highways, he said adding that 110 base transceiver stations out of 570 have already been installed all over the country, and 100 more will be set up soon.

The government established the company at a cost of Tk 2000 crore aimed at distributing about 2.5 lakh mobile phone connections.

Earlier the prime minister, Khaleda Zia, inaugurated the soft launch of the company on December 27, 2004.

At present, the four mobile companies — GrameenPhone, CityCell, AkTel, and Banglalink — have about 4 million connections altogether.

Sun Jun 25, 2006 3:58 pm