5 SIMs against one NID
No progress in implementation of compensation for call drops
Staff Reporter
State Minister for Post and Telecommunications Tarana Halim yesterday said government has decided to set a limit of five SIM cards that can be owned by a person and be registered against his or her National Identity Card (NID).
The sate minister came up with the remarks at a meeting with chief executive officers (CEOs) of mobile phone operators held at the secretariat in the capital.
The government had set the limit of using mobile phone connections in the wake of launching biometric SIM verification system on December 15, 2015 as the telecom regulator BTRC officially began verification of actual ownership of the phone numbers.
The meeting also discussed issues like call drops and guide line of value added services (VAS).
The meeting sources said there has been no progress in implementation of compensation for unexpected call drops despite an order by state minister for post and telecommunications Tarana Halim.
The BTRC has directed all mobile phone operators of the country to pay compensation for unexpected call drops to subscribers.
According to the secretary of the Posts and Telecom-munications Division, Faizur Rahman Chowdhury, the Bangladesh Telecommuni-cation Regulatory Com-mission (BTRC) was supposed to start work from the first week of June and telecom operators were scheduled to start paying compensation from July. But the mobile phone operators have not taken any decision regarding the issue till yesterday.
Earlier, the Posts and Telecommunications Division had asked the telecom regulator to monitor call drops and directed it to ensure compensation forthe users.
Tarana Halim said the BTRC has already set up a machinery to monitor call drops and ensure the quality of services.
The BTRC said the telecom regulator would settle the issue of compensation for calls drops as soon as possible.
Expressing dissatisfaction, Tarana Halim said on May15 that telecom operators would have to pay compensation of Tk1 for eachcall drop.
The day before that, the state minister had said subscribers should not suffer under any circumstances.
To ensure compensation for the subscribers, the BTRC would keep records of the unexpected call drops instead of the telecom operators, she said at that time.
The operators said that the issue of call drops requires further discussion.
Earlier, the Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh (AMTOB), the platform for all cellular phone operators in the country, sent a letter to the BTRC, requesting it to meet the operators and apprise them of the facts and figures in respect ofcall drops.
On January 19, the BTRC directed all mobile operators of the country to pay compensation for unexpected call drops to subscribers.
At that time, when asked why mobile phone operators were reluctant to pay compensation, TIM Nurul Kabir, secretary general of the Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh (AMTOB), told The Independent that there were no clear directions for call drop compensation in the International Telecom-munication Unions (ITUs) and BTRCs benchmarks for quality services, mentioned in the letter sent by BTRC.
On 28 January, Tarana Halim said mobile phone operators must inform their subscribers about the compensation, in case of call drops, through SMS.
