The government has finally rejected private land phone operator Banglaphone's application for a permanent licence for doing optical fibre connectivity business.
For nearly three years, the operator had been doing the business on the basis of temporary permits awarded by Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC).
The telecom regulator allegedly flouted rules by giving several temporary permits without informing the government and allowing Banglaphone dodge crores of taka in legal fees.
Last year, Banglaphone filed the formal application for a proper NTTN licence. BTRC forwarded the plea to the ministry in December last year.
The Post and Telecommunication Division discharged Banglaphone’s application and informed the company about the decision through a letter on Sunday.
After the Dhaka Tribune reported on the anomalies, the company applied for a proper Nationwide Telecommunication Transmission Network (NTTN) licence.
Among many other companies, the private television channels use the optical fibre connectivity for live coverage.
There are allegations that Banglaphone has tried to cheat the government even when applying for the permanent NTTN licence. The company reportedly mentioned the names of two reputed companies as its partners to strengthen its cause.
Banglaphone obtained a licence for providing land-phone services to the country’s north-east zone in 2004. Since 2011, the company has also been running an optical fibre networking business on temporary permits from the BTRC.
However, contradicting the telecom act, the watchdog has not informed the ministry about awarding the permission. Every year since 2011, the BTRC kept on renewing Banglaphone’s permit by a year.
According to the NTTN guidelines, if Banglaphone was operating with a proper licence, it would have needed to pay the government an initial licensing fee of Tk3 crore, a one-time application fee of Tk50,000 and Tk25 lakh as annual fees over these four years.
The guidelines also suggest that the company would have needed to place a Tk10 crore bank performance guaranty and share 1%-3% of its gross annual revenues with the government.
However, the BTRC reportedly allowed the company to operate its network without paying any of these fees and meeting any of the other criteria.
