MD: Teletalk to invest Tk3282.20cr soon to upgrade 3G data service

“A private operator can invest whenever it needs, while in Teletalk’s case, it takes too much time to approve any proposal due to bureaucratic process,” he told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday in a short interview. Teletalk, the lone state-owned mobile phone operator, is all set to implement a Tk3282.20cr mega investment project, to upgrade its 3G data services and also to spread 2G services at the union level. Industry insiders, however, are skeptic over any profitable outcome of such huge investment, arguing that when the state-owned company is already devastated by inefficiency, irregularities and mismanagement, the huge investment is surely going to be wasted, warning that the financial loss incurred by Teletalk is paid for by the government using tax money. Terming the investment ‘unjustified’, they said the money is simply being wasted. There is no justification for Teletalk to exist at all. Teletalk should be closed or privatised and government money, in lieu of being invested in an already failed project, should be used to improve schools and hospitals, to provide services that the public actually benefits from. The mobile operator Teletalk has chalked out a design to reach up to upazila and union levels to materialise the government’s ICT vision 2021. Giasuddin Ahmed said: “Our main weakness is lack of network. Teletalk has 40% network all over the country while most of the operators have network covering around 100% area of the country.” “We would be able to compete with other operators, once we can make a countrywide strong network. Strong network is the main key to ensure all kinds of mobile telephone-based services and it would be a huge scope for us to provide more government services through using Teletalk network,” he said. Mentionable, the country’s largest mobile phone operator Grameenphone has 12,000 Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs) at present whereas Teletalk has only 3,800 BTSs across the country. In reply to a query over the alleged irregularities in Teletalk, he said, “We are not burdened with inefficiency, irregularities or mismanagement, rather our main problem is lack of required investment.” “It is necessary to reach up to union level immediately; only then Teletalk will be able to compete with others. Management can’t do anything if we are not backed by required investment,” said Ahmed. “From the beginning of its journey, the state-owned company was and still is far behind from other mobile phone operators in terms of network coverage and updated services,” opined the Teletalk MD. “The operator is struggling from the very beginning as the government didn’t invest sufficient money in time,” he added. It is mention worthy that since its inception in 2005, Teletalk managed to grab only 3.2% market share. In terms of the number of the mobile subscribers, Teletalk is the smallest operator in the country with only 41,61,000 subscribers. Mobile phone consumers regularly allege that although Teletalk entered into the mobile market in 2005, it has failed to make any impact in the market.