The guideline for Tower Sharing Licence, which has already been drafted by Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), now waits for the consent from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).
Soon after the consent from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), the regulatory body will go for an auction without any delay, said an official of BTRC.
A committee has made the draft guideline of the Tower Sharing Licence.
Meanwhile, BTRC sent the draft to the PMO for approval.
The government is going to introduce the Tower Sharing Licence as part of its plan to carry out the maintenance of mobile phone base stations (BTS) through two of separate companies.
But, opposing the government’s decision, some mobile phone operators said, “Around 2,500 engineers will lose their jobs if the plan is implemented and the move also goes against the 3G licencing regulations.”
According to article 2 of the drafted guideline, only tower operators will get the tower sharing licenses while auction base price would be Tk3 crore as per article 12 of the guideline.
Applicants have to pay Tk3 crore as performance bank guarantee while yearly license fee would be Tk50 lakh.
License application form fee would be fixed at Tk1 lakh and the tenure of the license would be 15 years while the BTRC will get the revenue share of 5.5% after a year.
According to the guideline under article 19, the tenure of all the roll out obligations will be five yearsfor setting up towers across the country while the towers at the Upazilla level would be completed in the last year.
As of now,the six mobile operators have around 3,000 engineers. Of them, some 700 engineers are working for GP, 600 for Banglalink, 500 for Robi and 1,000 for Teletalk, Citycell and Airtel, according to sources.
“If BTRC finally implement its plan, we will probably lose our jobs and we are spending our time now amid uncertainty,” said an engineer of a leading mobile phone operator on condition of anonymity.
Since 2010, around 7,500 towers were set up by six operators across the country, of which 5,500 have already been shared.
According to article 5.1 of the guideline, proprietorship, partnership, and companies registered under the companies act, 1994 are eligible to apply for the Tower Sharing License.