Telenor Group President Jon Fredrik Baksaas has said they participated in the 3G spectrum auction and are now preparing for 3G mobile services upon assurance from the government about Grameenphone’s licence.
“Definitely our investment into 3G is based upon assurance that Grameenphone and Telenor group can continue.
“From that perspective we are here to support Grameenphone and develop. We had a big discussion over this issue,” he told a group of reporters yesterday.
In an interim report submitted to the finance ministry in February, the government-sponsored Grameen Bank Commission recommended immediately suspending Grameenphone’s licence as the operator was not a party to the 1996 licence agreement.
Baksaas said: “Apart from that we haven’t found any final report about it; so, we need to wait and see what happens.”
Norwegian Minister Trond Giske and Baksaasvisited Dhaka in April in the wake of the report and met with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the ministers for finance, foreign affairs, telecommunication and commerce, and other high officials concerned regarding the issue.
Baksaasshared their plan for affordable 3G enabled handsets: “We are in a position to work with a vendor. A couple of years ago we launched feature phone with Grameenphone level and that might happen again.
“From Telenor Group we also work on it in different low penetration markets. Markets like Bangladesh need smart handsets below $60 for 3G.”
Regarding the ecosystem of 3G he said they needed more local contents to flourish. “Health and education would be a major sector for 3G but it also needs to go through how the market is reacting.”
Baksaas said there was a huge scope for every operator to grow as lots of people had no connection and “we want to put on our board.”
Replying to a question he said Grameenphone’s quality of 3G service would be “very good” and subscribers would not have to wait any more for 4G although compatible handsets were not yet much available in Bangladesh.
Baksaas declined to be specific about Telenor’s investment into 3G service. “Telenor and Grameenphone are a long-term investor and we want to build the network for good communication service. We have made significant investment but I can’t mention the figure.”
Telenor, a company owned by the Norwegian government, owns 55.8% of Grameenphone. Grameen Telecom has 34.2% shares in the operator while the rest are owned by IPO investors.
Telenor has investment in 11 other countries and is preparing to operate in Myanmar, which Baksaas expects to happen anytime next year.
Baksaas said from operations in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan they had learnt how to operate low-cost markets.