BTRC sets Tk 80b income target from 3G licences

Md Jamal uddinThe telecom regulator has set a target of earning Tk 80 billion by issuing Third Generation (3G) technology licences to the telecom operators next year. The expected amount will come mainly from spectrum charge and licence fee, said a high official of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) on Friday. The authorities have planned to offer licences by 2012 through open auction following a decision of Prime Minister's Office earlier. BTRC chairman Zia Ahmed said the commission is working to recruit an international firm for consultancy services in awarding 3G cellular mobile telecommunication licence. According to the telecom regulator, the selected firm will prepare a complete licensing guideline along with corresponding technical specifications, spectrum pricing, roll-out plan, and will develop an operating and monitoring system for successful implementation, create competition, work on human resource development, and give assistance in launching 3G services in Bangladesh. Industry insiders said mobile operators are waiting for the valuable service but the regulator has so far failed to announce any guideline regarding this issue. Executive vice president of Robi Mahmudur Rahman said many things are involved in launching the 3G service in the country. At first, the company will have to survey the market whether it is ready for the service and business viability, he said adding everything will depend on guidelines. Mr Mahmud said the telecom authority has already charged high fee for 2G licence renewal and so his company will take preparation for 3G licence after getting guidelines. In November this year, BTRC collected Tk 31.84 billion from four mobile phone operators as the first installment of 2G (second generation) licence renewal fees. For introducing the 3G technology and 2.5G network expansion project, the government is taking Tk 14.77 billion from China as loan and Teletalk will provide rest of Tk 4.24 billion from its own fund. After completion of the project, Teletalk would provide 3G services to 1.5 million users and better quality services to 5.5 million GSM users. Sources said mobile infrastructure builder Ericson started 3G service on test-run in the country on August 10, 2008. Another firm Huawei was also permitted to operate the test-run of 3G. Robi official Mahmud explained that if the service is launched then people will enjoy watching TV, movie, road-map, internet and telemedicine in their mobile phone sets. Besides, the technology gives more security than 2G technology as this technology uses Kasumi Block Crypto instead of A51 Stream Cipher. In India, Tata DOCOMO launched 3G service in December, 2010 while Vodaphone and Bharti Airtel introduced in March 2011 with 2100 megahertz bandwidth. Almost 82 million subscribers are availing mobile service across the country.