How transformed land phone is!

The Bangladesh Telecommu-nications Company Limited (BTCL) lovingly calls it "three-dimensional service system". All because the service provider has undertaken the task of transforming the now discredited land phone into a most advanced digital gadget with a service package of voice, data and video. Even it will have provision for watching television programmes but in that case it will require use of greater bandwidth.

According to report, the introduction of multi-dimensional services starting on August 12 will initially benefit 8,000 subscribers under the Sher-e-Bangla Telephone Exchange. Subscribers whose telephone numbers start with digits 815 may consider themselves lucky because all these numbers will be turned into the advanced type. Some of the telephone numbers beginning with digits 811 and 812 will also receive the favour. Once they are considered for incorporation of the latest technology, their seven digits will be replaced by eight digits.

The aim is to reach internet service at the village level and to that end the BTCL has brought down the monthly charge of internet bandwidth from Tk 4,800 to Tk 2,800. In the interest of subscribers, the rates of different data packages have been downgraded or given incremental facilities for the same rates. Such modernisation is being implemented under the tag name "One lakh ekattar hazar prokalpa".

All this gives the impression that the telecommunications service is all set to embark on a giant leap. When the optical fibre replaces the copper wire, such a radical transformation may indeed take place. But such positive developments cannot as yet send the endemic downside to the museum. Rather, some of the troubling facts look awfully anachronistic. The BTCL is yet to address problems such as lines going dead. Even complaints under the Sher-e-Bangla Telephone Exchange are not promptly attended.

There are instances that repeated intimation could not cure cross connections between two sets on either side of the road in Mohammadpur area for months. After the fire at that exchange office, service never reached the previous level. If lines are restored on request it does not take more than 10 to 20 days for going out of order again. And there does not end the sufferings of subscribers. Bills are not given regularly or payment goes unrecorded. The office sends a letter to a subscriber instructing him or her to contact it and get the matter settled. Why should a subscriber go to the office when the service provider is at fault? It should be the office's duty to go to the subscriber and check if one is a defaulter or where the mistake has occurred. When a month's bill is deliberately withheld, it surely is done with an ulterior motive.

Subscribers get annoyed with this kind of vexing service and because cell phone cannot afford such unilateral ill treatment of subscribers, they rely more on this easy-to-handle and unfailing gadget. The authorities have expressed optimism that the latest facilities will revive land phone's past glory. It may not be so easy because the charge for internet is still on the high side and more importantly, the service tinged with bureaucratic arrogance mixed with condescension will never be able to compete with better, easily available and prompt attention as paid by private cell phone companies.