Govt set to issue final guideline on 3G mobile service next week

Jamal Uddin The government has decided to issue the final guideline on 3G (third generation) mobile phone service next week, paving the way for opening up the latest technology for the private operators. The telecom ministry took the decision Tuesday at a meeting with the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) and top executives of the private mobile phone operators at the ministry. "We have discussed the draft guideline with the private operators. They have made some demands to be incorporated in it (guideline)," Abubakar Siddique, Secretary-in-Charge, Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications told the FE. He further said: "The final guideline will be published next week, taking the suggestions of the cell phone operators into consideration." Mr Siddique mentioned that this was the last meeting with the stakeholders on 3G guideline. Sources said the telecom regulator had discussed the issue at a Commission meeting on Tuesday after the meeting of the ministry. The telecom secretary also said the BTRC would maintain other procedures to hold the auction of the service. Earlier, the finance ministry had fixed US$ 20 million for per MHz spectrum as the base price of the 3G service. After finalising the guideline, BTRC will take a few months to maintain some formalities like fixing the process of 3G auction, advertisement seeking EoI (Expression of Interest) and receiving and finalisation of the formal applications from the expected participants in the auction. At present, state-owned operator Teletalk is conducting the 3G service, taking special permission from the authorities. Besides Teletalk, four other private operators, including a foreign company, will be allowed for the service as per the draft guideline. BTRC has reserved 50 MHz spectrum of 2100 band for the five mobile operators. According the draft guideline, each licence holder has to spend Tk 1.5 billion in bank guarantee, Tk 100 million in licence fees and Tk 0.5 million in application fees. Besides, an individual operator needs Tk 50 million for licence renewal fees with revenue sharing at 5.5 per cent and social obligation fees at one per cent. The guideline 'Cellular Mobile Phone Service (3G/4G/LTE) Regulatory Licencing Guideline 2012' has been formulated broadly to enable the bid winners to adopt the upcoming new technologies. 4G (fourth generation) and LTE (Long Term Evaluation) are the advanced technologies after 3G for mobile communication. According to the telecom experts, 3G will bring huge benefits to the users as it will give better speed in Internet use like on computers or laptops. Anybody will be able to make video calls, download games and music through mobile phones. For the service, the users have to have 3G-enabling handset designed to surf the Internet, view pictures of the people they are talking to, watch movies and listen to music.