Hundreds of thousands of mobile phone users, chiefly in the divisional headquarters, have been facing frequent network problems for the last couple of weeks.
Users in the capital and the major cities are complaining of call drops, long delays in SMS delivery and other problems.
They express their disturbance in different public places and different social media like Facebook also. Some group of subscribers who have sufferings from different problems in quality services also created a set of platform.
Mobile company officials said they were setting up advanced mobile data services with 3G technology, which might be creating some disturbance.
The problems may continue up to March in Dhaka and the next three to four months outside the capital.
“We are trying to upgrade our network with modern equipment for 3G services from 2G services, so some of our users may face problems in different places in the capital,” AKM Morshed, the chief technology officer of Robi, told the Dhaka Tribune.
He said the operator needed more than three months to cover the whole capital with 3G.
No other operator was willing to comment on the issue.
Ruhul Amin, an executive of a private company, who lives in Banashri, said: “Suddenly on Wednesday evening my handset lost signal on. I was panicked. But it came back after next morning.”
Tusher Bin Jubair, a university student, changed his old number to another operator but was frustrated when the same problems persisted.
Industry experts are saying 3G network optimisation is a very big challenge. Market leader Grameenphone, Robi, Airtel and Banglalink are facing the same problems.
An official of one of the operators said his company was changing antennas with dual bands for 2G and 3G which was only used for 1800 bands. Under 3G, operators provide their service in 2100 band.
“We have started network upgrade in a large scale in the last few weeks. We might do bigger network upgrades after the political turmoil ends, so problems may increase and continue for the next six to nine months,” a chief technology officer of a mobile company told the Dhaka Tribune.
State owned mobile operator Teletalk also faced this challenge when it rolled out 3G network after October 2012.
Md Muzibor Rahaman, the managing director of Teletalk, said: “Network optimisation is a big challenge from the operator’s point of view. When operators switch their network from one technology to another it creates problems. Optimisation also takes time.”
“We faced big problems just after launching 3G service last year. If new 3G operators did not take proper precautions, they will also have to face the same problems,” he added.
Market leader Grameenphone claimed it had almost completed their network upgrade in the capital but needed more time for tuning.
“It may create some problems, but that will be very nominal,” a high executive of the company said.
Airtel claimed it had upgraded 750 BTS from 2G to 3G and their problems were very few as its network was the most updated compared to the rest of the operators.