MNP will be operational by March: Tarana
State minister to sit with Facebook officials on January 12
Staff Reporter
State Minister for Posts and Telecommunications Division Tarana Halim said Mobile Number Portability (MNP) will be operational by March.
She said that at a press briefing yesterday on the achievement of posts and telecommunications division in the last two years.
The state minister also added that to make the process of MNP more transparent, amendment and abridgement on rules are being done.
Faizur Rahman Chowdhury, secretary, posts and telecommunications division, said To avoid any conflict of interest the amendments are being made. He also added that in the amendment, the company which will get the licence for MNP will have to fulfill the pre-condition otherwise there licence and money will be seized. MNP is a service that allows a cellphone customer to change telecom carrier and keep the same phone number.
Earlier, ICT adviser to the Prime Minister Sajib Wajed Joy said that evaluation should be the way to give licence for third party MNP service provider.
He came up with comment at a Posts and Telecommunications Divisions meeting on December 15. In the meeting Joy said licence of MNP should not be given through auction but through proper evaluation. The process through which government will be able to select proper organisation to give the licence to. The evolution process should be able to identify the organizations who do not have the right technical and financial eligibility, he also said.
Organisation with proper technical and financial support will have to roll out within a stipulated time otherwise their licence will be cancelled and the next in line will get the licence.
Also, State Minister for Posts and Telecommunications Division Tarana Halim is going to sit with Facebook officials in Singapore as part of her ongoing efforts to reach a deal with the social networking site for an admin panel in Bangladesh.
While addressing at the press conference at her secretariat office Tarana Halim said yesterday , she planned to go to Singapore on 12 January to meet Facebook officials and visit Microsoft and some more telecommunications companies.
We are trying to reach a deal with Facebook and set an admin panel of the social networking site in Bangladesh . . . I want to achieve the two goals in long term, she said.
The state minister is scheduled to fly on January 10 to 24; visit to Singapore and Malaysia.
Apart from the meeting with Facebook officials, the state minister would hold talks with telecommunications and ICT ministers of the two countries and seek advice from them to introduce a high-performance business model for Teletalk to turn it into a profitable organisation, the officials added.
State-owned mobile operator Telekom Malaysia is one of the leading mobile operators in Malaysia.
