The telecom regulator said as the network infrastructure service provider edotco had no licence for the business, it would not be allowed to do any related work in Bangladesh.
In a letter sent recently to mobile phone operators, Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission made it clear.
Under the 3G licence guideline, only mobile phone operators shall be responsible for establishing, building, managing and maintaining of their network towers.
The introduction of tower sharing guideline has been in discussion among regulator and operators since last year.
edotco Bangladesh was launched as an independent business on June 1, 2013 and is part of the Malaysia-based Axiata Group with Mobile Telephone and Network Infrastructure operations in 8 countries.
In its website, edotco Bangladesh says it owns and operates more than 6,000 BTS tower sites throughout the country and continues to expand operations. edotco also claims it is the market leader in Bangladesh and has 11 customers including six mobile phone operators.
To get service, the mobile phone operators were communicating with edotco. After having failed to get any service, telecom operator Banglink sent a letter to BTRC asking for clarification about the latest status of the network service provider.
Then BTRC advised Banglalink not get engaged in any business with the edotco as it had no licence to provide any infrastructure service.
“We had a plan to do business with edotco. But we stopped the process after the BTRC’s advice,” Taimur Rahman, senior director of Government Relations and regulatory affairs of Banglalink, told the Dhaka Tribune.
BTRC said the infrastructure sharing guidelines were only applicable to the telecom operators that had licence. But as the edotco has no licence for such operations, it can not be an infrastructure service provider.
According to the conditions of the no-objection certificate (NOC), edotco is entitled only to share the transferred passive infrastructure from Robi with any concerned authorised entity.
Questions were raised whether edotco could provide network infrastructure and maintenance service to any other cellular mobile phone operator.
When contacted about BTRC’s clarification, Ekram Kabir, vice president of Robi Axiata Limited, declined to make any comment without reading the letter.
