Telcos asked to provide call drop compensation info through SMS
STAFF REPORTER
State Minister for Post and Telecommunications Division Tarana Halim yesterday said the mobile phone operators must inform their subscribers about the compensation in case of call drop through SMS.
The mobile phone operators have to inform their subscribers about the compensation through SMS. If the subscribers are not informed, they will think that they are not getting the compensation, Tarana said at a meeting with the chief executive officers of mobile phone operators in the capital.
Faizur Rahman Chowdhury, secretary of Posts and Telecommunications Division, said the mobile phone operators will have to inform their subscribers if possible daily or weekly about how many cases of call drops occurred and how much free talk time he or she was given as compensation.
Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) Chairman Engineer Shahjahan Mahmood said it is monitoring that if the operators are providing 60 seconds of free talk time on each call drop as compensation according to the rules. BTRC will take measure if the regulator gets any allegation regarding call drops from the subscribers, he added
According to BTRC, the talk time compensation for dropped calls would conform to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) standard.
The end the sufferings of subscribers, earlier a meeting of mobile phone operators was called on October 19 by State Minister for Posts and Telecommunications Tarana Halim after State Minister for Foreign Affairs Shahriar Alam publicly expressed annoyance over call drops.
The issue of call drops came up at the meeting and so did the issue of compensating telecom subscribers. Finally, at the initiative of ICT Adviser to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Sajeev Wajed Joy, the Posts and Telecommunications Ministry decided to direct BTRC to compensate for the call drops.
Earlier, both Grameen Phone (GP), the countrys largest mobile operator, and Banglalink had introduced refund for call drops. The operators promised their subscribers free talk time as compensation for frequent call drops. While Banglalink, at a press conference, announced one minute back on call drop, GP, on the same lines, announced returning 60 seconds on each call drop.
GP CMO Alan Bonke in a press statement had said GP subscribers would be compensated with 60 seconds in case of a call drop, so that they could be confident about their network. The statement further said that the offer that began on October 1, would be applicable to all calls under the GP network. However, a subscriber would receive a maximum 300 seconds or five minutes.
The release added that all GP subscribers would be able to enjoy the facility for which, there would be no need for registration. GP would inform subscribers about compensation through a SMS, whereas post-paid subscribers would get compensation along with their monthly bills.
Later, however, both GP and Banglalink discontinued the refund without letting their subscribers know. Regulators were informed about this.
Not surprisingly, GP, on October 19, came under renewed fire from Tarana over its poor services and frequent call drops. At a meeting of mobile phone operators the same day, Tarana said there were complaints of call drops against other operators as well.
At the meeting, the results of a survey were also presented, which said that 48 per cent respondents had faced one call drop in every 10 calls whereas 30 per cent respondents had faced 2 call drops in every 10 calls.
