MNP guidelines awaits finance ministry nod
It gets approval of Posts and Telecommunications Division
Tareque Moretaza
The amended guideline for mobile number portability (MNP) has been forwarded to the Ministry of Finance for the ministrys approval. Posts and Telecommunications Division has approved the amended guidelines before sending it to the finance ministry.
Telecom regulator will hold beauty contest for selecting a third party service provider after receiving the approved MNP guideline from finance ministry.
We will direct Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) to hold beauty contest after receiving approved copy of guideline, State Minister for Posts and Telecommunications Tarana Halim told The Independent.
The state minister also said it will take two or three months to introduce the service after receiving approval from the finance ministry.
When asked the state minister about her announcement to launch the service last year, Tarana Halim said, We cancelled the auction for security reason, otherwise we could have been able to introduce the service in the beginning this year if not in the last year.
Last year, the BTRC had fixed December 4 to hold the auction for the MNP, but it was cancelled on September 20 after the posts, telecommunications and information and communication technology (ICT) ministry issued a directive to this effect.
The BTRC again amended the guidelines after receiving the directive of the telecom ministry. The draft guideline was approved at the 202nd meeting of the commission and was sent to the ministry of posts, telecommunications and information technology. A beauty contest is a selection process through which the BTRC-formed committee selects a single company from interested candidates. The selection will be held on the basis of some criteria.
According to the amended guideline, license acquisition fee has been proposed at Tk 10 crore. Earlier, MNP license acquisition fees was set at Tk 20 crore. Rest of the clauses of the draft guidelines would remain unchanged. According to the draft guidelines, annual license renewal fees would be Tk 25 lakh, while revenue sharing would be 15 per cent from the second year, bank guarantee Tk 10 crore and security money Tk 1 crore.
Once license is awarded, MNP licensee companies will have to rollout their service within six months.
Commencement of the service would allow mobile subscribers to switch from one operator to another with just Tk 30 as fees without changing their existing number. The BTRC sent the draft guidelines to the posts, telecommunications and ICT ministry, maintaining the provision that any qualified companies, including the five organisations qualified earlier, were eligible for the beauty contest.
When asked whether the BTRC will be able to select the right company through a beauty contest, the BTRC secretary said: The commission has already fixed some criteria for this. If a company meets those criteria, only then it will get the chance to provide the MNP service.
Once the MNP service is launched the market will be more competitive for the operators as they would try to bring in new subscribers and also try to keep their existing ones, Dr Shahjahan Mahmood said.
