A working committee of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), mobile phone operators and Mobile number portability (MNP) licensee is working together to finalise a consumer-friendly MNP process, reports UNB.
As soon as the workable MNP process is finalised, the MNP licensee in collaboration with all the related stakeholders will launch the service within a significant reasonable timeframe for making the service up and running, said a press release issued by the Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh (AMTOB) on Tuesday.
AMTOB said, "It has come to our notice in recent times that some media reports have accused the mobile operators of slowing down the process of launching MNP service in Bangladesh."
"We categorically state that such accusations are utterly baseless and misleading to a great extent. As a customer-centric industry, mobile network operators (MNO) are indeed very keen to facilitate their customers in choosing the operator of their choice through availing the MNP service. Just like many other countries of the world, we strongly believe that our customers deserve to enjoy this freedom."
MNP is a very complex process in which customers' transactions are involved, it said, adding: "Just to elaborate on the level of complexity involved, we (AMTOB) would like to highlight that Bangladesh is probably the only country in the world to have nearly 60 gateways (Interconnection exchange, International Gateway, International Internet Gateway) and many other Access Network Service operators (Mobile Operators, IPTSPs, BWA operators, PSTN operators, etc.). In this regard, considering the complexity of existing telecommunications network involving a plethora of stakeholders in the whole value chain, we must ensure that all these entities are properly integrated."
"The timeline is necessary for planning, designing and developing the internal core, IT and other equipment, platform for MNP and testing. It must be noted that all operators need to get confirmation on the porting mechanism of this service for them to start the activities. Unfortunately, the mobile operators are yet to be intimated of such prerequisite arrangement," the AMTOB said.
"The telecom industry strongly believes that service quality-based considerations should be the key driving factors in promoting healthy market competition among the operators. In this connection, the industry is relentlessly working and wholeheartedly cooperating with all the stakeholders involved in order to facilitate the launch of MNP in the country for their valued customers," it added.
