Teletalk, the lone state-run mobile operator, plans to invest Tk4,000 crore for the expansion of its 3G network across the country and roll out of its 4G or LTE (Long-Term Evolution) network.
The LTE is the standard for high-speed data wireless communication through mobile phones and data terminals.
Meanwhile, 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.
As Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) is planning to float 4G auctions in 2016, Teletalk is also preparing for rolling out its 4G network.
An official of Teletalk said, “The operator has already sent a letter to the Post & Telecommunication Ministry with a request for providing Tk4,000 as soft loan.”
According to a ministry source, “The government has also been trying to obtain a loan from China to modernise the Teletalk network for boosting digital connectivity as Teletalk had earlier received loan from China to roll out its 3G network in 2013.”
However, the state-own company is still far behind the other mobile phone operators in terms of network coverage and updated services.
As of now, the country’s largest mobile operator Grameenphone has 12,000 Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs) whereas Teletalk has only 3,800 BTSs across the country.
Teletalk entered into the mobile market in 2005 but failed to make any profit as yet because the company could not attract a significant number of the subscribers due to its poor network and services.
“The huge investment would help us to increase number of subscribers for competing with the other private mobile operators,’’
If we will be able to construct more BTS across the country, undoubtedly number of subscribers and services would increase significantly,” said Gias Uddin Ahmed, managing director of Teletalk.
He said: “We need a lot of money to implement all the plans to make profit but fund shortage is the main problem for us to expand our network and services. Private operators can instantly undertake a plan and can implement it instantly. But, we can’t take any plan on urgent basis to carry out it due to bureaucratic tangle.”
A high official of Teletalk informed the Dhaka Tribune that at the beginning of the 3G roll out, it wanted to invest Tk2,000 crore but finally got only Tk678 crore.
“Over the last 15 years, each of the private operators invested at least Tk15,000 crore on an average while Teletalk invested only around Tk3,000 crore. To tap the growing mobile communication market it needs huge amount of money,” he added.
Since its inception in 2005, state-owned company 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.
According to the figures released by BTRC up to May 2015, the total mobile subscribers of the Teletalk reached 41.61 lakh. The regulatory figure, however, showed that Teletalk was able to add 65,000 more subscribers in May 2015.
On the contrary, during the same period, Robi added highest 10 lakh subscribers and Banglalink added 6 lakh while GP’s subscribers’ number increased around 5 lakh.
