Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) on Thursday said that the final decision on closing down Citycell will be taken by the government.
A delegation of the operators visited BTRC two days ago, said BTRC Chairman Shahjahan Mahmood at a news gathering on Wednesday.
“The summary of the discussion will be sent to the government. The government will take the final decision whether to close Citycell or not,” Mahmood said.
“It is for the government to decide whether we will take the dues,” he added.
Citycell, country’s oldest and lone CDMA mobile-phone operator, has failed to pay Tk 4.77 billion in dues.
The BTRC has given Citycell until August 16 to pay up the fees for 2G spectrum, annual licence renewal, revenue sharing, and several other fees.
The regulators have warned the operator with cancelling its spectrum and closing down operations.
Citycell’s subscriber base shrunk to 700,000 in June, which is less than 1 percent of the total number of mobile-phone users.
Mahmood also said that after the biometric registration of SIM cards, the operator now has 100,000 to 150,000 customers only.
On whether Citycell customers can be given time until the option to switch operator by keeping the number unchanged is made available, the BTRC chief said, “The incident with Citycell is unfortunate. We are also sorry for the customers who will face problems.”
In 2012, when the regulators renewed their licences, Citycell was given the chance to switch from CDMA to GSM for only a Tk 2 billion fee in addition to qualification to bid for 3G services.
However, Citycell did not take part in the bid as it failed to come up with the $20 million earnest money.
Acknowledgeing the strategic mistakes, Citycell CEO Mehboob Chowdhury said, “Not going for GSM was a major mistake.”
“I hope we will be able to pay the arrears as soon as new investments come in,” said the CEO.
BTRC Commissioner Zahirul Haque told the media call on Wednesday, “We could close Citycell on August 1 going by the law, but we’ve given the time considering the users.”
Asked about arrears of other mobile-phone operators, Chairman Mahmood said, “We consider them all equally. But it is the government that always takes the decision.”
Source: Ittefaq
