The country’s telecom regulatory body has been renewing a “permit” to a private land phone operator for networking business, although it has never been awarded a license, saving the company crores in various fees.
Despite objections from several quarters including the telecom ministry, Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) has continued its favouritism for Bangla Phone, a private land phone operator (PSTN).
Bangla Phone has been operating as an NTTN (Nationwide Telecommunication Transmission Network) on the basis of a “permit” without proper licensing since 2011, despite several warnings from the ministry.
An NTTN acts as a provider of network to various mobile operators, internet providers and other communications media. There are two licensed NTTNs in the country at present: Fiber@Home and Summit Communications.
However, Bangla Phone has also been providing this service across the country. The company’s website says it has 7,000km of fibre optic cables laid down across the country and caters to big operators such as Robi and Channel i.
BTRC first gave a permit to Bangla Phone in 2011 without telecom ministry approval, and has renewed it annually in the same manner, which is unlawful.
Recently when the issue came in to the public eye, BTRC hurriedly sent it to their legal firm Lex Counsel, and they advised the regulator not to do this.
“Allowing Bangla Phone Ltd by various permits to provide the same services as NTTN license-holders will seriously jeopardise the essence of the Infrastructure Sharing and NTTN guideline,” Barrister Khandaker Reza-E-Raquib, a senior advocate of Lex Counsel, remarked in a report sent to BTRC.
Despite the advise, the telecom regulator went ahead and recommended another permit for Bangla Phone to the ministry. Allegedly it has also been pressurising the telecom ministry to authorise the old permit with a retrospective effect.
Bangla Phone’s permit will expire this April.
A commissioner of BTRC, requesting not be named, said, “The legal firm gave us the right suggestions but the commission does not agree with it. And the commission is also trying to explain away the legal firm’s opinions.”
Sources said as Bangla Phone is a last mile solution provider it cannot be awarded an NTTN license and another point was that if they took the NTTN license they would have to deposit crores in license fees, annual fees and share 2% of its total revenue.
It is also mandatory for NTTN license-holders to give a Tk10 crore bank guaranty for performance.
Bangla Phone has not been required to pay the NTTN license fee worth Tk3 crore and annual fees of Tk25 lakh, as it does not have a license.
“A License provision for NTTN does not have any number restrictions, but the permit issued by the regulator is totally illegal, and now they are trying to legalise it,” Barrister Aneek R Haque, a former senior legal consultant for BTRC, told the Dhaka Tribune.
Barrister Aneek R Haque had fought a legal battle for BTRC back in 2008 against Bangla Phone, when BTRC directed the company not to lay fibres. Bangla Phone went to the court and lost the case. The court fined Bangla Phone Tk5,000 for wasting its valuable time.
After the change of the government, however, Bangla Phone managed a permit in 2011, bypassing the telecom law and has been running its business since.
Earlier, Amjad Khan, the managing director and CEO of Bangla Phone, told the Dhaka Tribune: “We are creating a network and the government should give us the permission to work. People in many areas would not have internet access at a minimum rate if not for us.”
But when the Dhaka Tribune tried to contract Amjad Khan yesterday his phone was found switched off.
According to the BTRC’s records, Bangla Phone as a zonal operator has seven annual fees and revenue sharing for 21 quarters outstanding.
On its website, Bangla Phone claimed to have obtained the permission to operate land lines in the northeast zone on June 22, 2004. However, it claimed to be a transmission network service provider with 16 districts under its network.
Source: Dhaka Tribune
