Grameenphone, the leading mobile phone operator in the country, has started recycling and reselling the numbers that remained either inactive or unrecharged for the last five years since 2009.
The operator already started the programme on a pilot basis from August and resold 5,000 inactive Subscriber Identity Modules (SIM), said a source.
It added that the mobile operator has already sold more than nine crore SIMs after it launched journey in Bangladesh in 1997 and has no more space to sell new connection without increasing a digit.
Currently, the Grameenphone’s active connections are very close to five crore (4.95 crore), according to a Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) report after July.
The operator has some five crore inactive SIMs in the market, which remain unused for a long time, said a senior executive of the company. There are also some technical challenges of not selling some numbers for corporate deals.
“We have no other way but to follow the strategies and thus we informed the telecom regulator of our status,” Mahmud Hossain, GP chief corporate affairs officer told the Dhaka Tribune Wednesday.
The GP gives the revenue regulator, NBR, proper taxes on reselling the SIMs. It found around 16 lakh SIMs had not been used since 2009 and they would go on resale from the first week of October, Mahmud said. “Recently, we are facing a serious scarcity of numbers.”
Earlier in February, GP sent an intimation letter to the telecom regulator, but the BTRC did not inform the market leader operator of anything about it.
It mentioned the National Numbering Plan 2005, saying an operator had the capacity of incorporating 10 crore phone numbers into its 11 digit mobile number plan, but the GP had already around 8.13 crore numbers up to January last.
As per the current status, the introduction of 3G had fostered the rise of Grameenphone customers, and around 1.39 crore SIMs were sold only in 2013, the letter said, adding that the company would reach the peak of its capacity within a few months.
The letter also expressed concerns that if the Grameenphone did not start recycling process soon, it would have to stop SIM sale. Currently, the total number of disconnected GP SIMs covers almost 20% of the number plan capacity of the company, the letter said.
It added that the company wants to implement the recycling or reusing strategies as they are very common practice in global telecommunication industry as well. Sources at the operator company claimed that if they could delete these disconnected numbers from their database, it would reduce their maintenance costs.
Regarding the change of ownership of numbers, the letter says: “As per the clause of our 3G licence, it has been made clear that allocation of a number does not confer ownership of the number on the customer, and Grameenphone as operator can withdraw or change the number by giving a three months’ notice period.”
Mahmud Hossain also said: “After recycling 5,000 SIMS we found no objection from any customers. If anybody complains to us we will see to that.”
Another mobile phone operator Robi also requested the BTRC and the NBR to allow them to reuse the disconnected SIMs.
