Govt reduces MNP cost

The government has reduced the cost of Mobile Number Portability (MNP) service from Tk 157.50 to Tk 57.50, reports UNB.

The service enables the customers to switch to different operators without changing their existing mobile phone numbers.

After its initial launch on October 1, the charge for MNP service was a total of Tk 157.50 including SIM Tax - Tk 100, Service Charge - Tk 50 and 15 per cent VAT.

The reduction comes with the government deciding to cut down the Tk. 100 SIM Tax, reducing the total cost to only Tk 57.50, Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology Minister Mustafa Jabbar said Wednesday.

"The Finance Ministry approved a proposal of reducing the SIM Tax which was earlier sent by the Posts, Telecommunications and IT Ministry and the official announcement about the cost reduction will be made within three or four days", he said.

"Though the MNP service was launched earlier, but formally Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will inaugurate the service from Ganabhaban on October 21 around 10 am", he said.

"Already the service has triggered a great enthusiasm among the people. Beside it would inevitably ensure the quality service of the mobile phone operators otherwise they would lose their customer", the minister said.

The ministry has recently approved a Quality of Service (QOS) policy and directed BTRC to monitor and send letters to the mobile operators regarding the matter, he said.

The QOS would monitor network speed, voice call quality, call drops etc.

Within five days of launching the service a total of 10,122 requests have been received to switch the operators and among them porting was successfully completed of 4,182 requests.

A total of 1834 customers switched from Grameenphone (GP), 972 from Robi, 130 from Teletalk and 1276 from Banglalink in first five days.

Meanwhile, GP received 682 clients, Robi 2,341, Banglalink 1,089 and Teletalk 89.