The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) has decided to repeal the licences of eight firms that are authorised to sell international SIM cards and internet cards due to irregularities and security threats to the country.

The BTRC has taken the initiative at a meeting, which was held in the first week of this month.

The errant companies are: Intraco Limited, UGI Trade Co, 4DL Bangladesh Limited, Hello Telecom Limited, M/S Bijoy Bangla Telecom, OK Mobile, Wings Tours and Travels Limited, and Sanchita Enterprise.

BTRC chairman Dr Shahjahan Mahmood said the approval of the companies

would be revoked immediately after the ministry accepts the proposal. “We’ll take appropriate action if the firms provide services even after their licences are annulled,” he added.

When the BTRC had sent letters to these companies asking how many connections they have sold to their customers, only three firms provided the data and the rest did not submit any information. Among these firms, Intraco had sold SIM cards to one lakh customers who had gone to perform Hajj. The UGI had sold 219 SIM cards, while 4DL had sold 53 SIM cards. Bijoy Bangla and OK Mobile did not respond to the letters sent by the BTRC. Hello Telecom, Wings and Sanchita have not yet started selling SIM, Removable User Identity Module (RUIM) or data cards.     

On Sep-tember 7, the National Telecommuni-cation Monitoring Centre (NTMC) and the BTRC at a meeting informed the Posts and Telecommuni-cations Division that the approved SIM, RUIM and data card-selling organisations had flouted the guidelines of the regulatory body.

“It will pose a security threat to the country,” the Posts and Telecommunication Division was told.

The NTMC representatives said militants and terrorists sometimes use international SIMs, RUIMs and data cards by taking advantage of the uncontrolled an unsupervised trade which is a big security threat to the country.

After three months of the meeting, BTRC took the decision to cancel the licences of the 8 companies.