Tarana to meet CEOs of mobile operators today
State Minister for Posts and Telecommunications Tarana Halim has called the chief executive officers (CEOs) of all mobile-phone operators to discuss dropped calls and other customer harassments. Mohamamd Enayet Hossain, information officer of Posts and Telecommunications Division, told The Independent yesterday that the meeting will take place at the ministry on Monday (today). State Minister for Foreign Affairs Md Shahriar Alam recently vented his ire on Grameenphone, the leading telecom company of Bangladesh, on his Facebook page, over the poor quality of services. On his Facebook page the minister wrote: What is the problem with GP (Grameenphone)? Impossible to make calls. Call drops. Couple of months ago they used to send apology SMS after call drop. No trace of that even; also very poor network at Arani. I hardly get signal from my bedroom on the 1st floor and there is no building close to my residence to weaken the signal. I requested them two years ago to look into it, but no improvement.
Commenting on Alams Facebook remark, Tarana Halim said: I have been repeatedly asking them (GP) to improve their service quality, including the call drop problem. I have also asked Telenor. It seems they are more interested in making money than providing quality service. They are our valued development partners; it is time they start acting like one. It is to be noted that the Indian telecoms regulators have recently ordered their operators to compensate users at the rate of Rs 1 per call drop. Bangladesh has six mobile-phone operators. According to Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), the number of SIM cards sold to the subscribers crossed 130 million in the 160 million-strong country by the end of August. The number of internet users is around 52.5 million.
