Teletalk, the state owned mobile phone operator, has no plans to extend their 3G coverage outside their six target districts until the project ends next June, depriving residents of the remaining 58 districts from the service.
The only provider of the service, with $211m foreign suppliers’ credit from China and local funds of Tk4.24m, started its test run on October 14 last year and has managed to barely cover Dhaka, Narayanganj, Gazipur and Chittagong so far. It intends to reach Cox’s Bazar and Sylhet within the deadline.
Telecommunication secretary and Teletalk board chairman, Md Abubakar Siddique, told the Dhaka Tribune on Sunday: “The project was only for these six districts. I do not have any idea about whether the project would be extended or any new project would be introduced.”
Even the parliamentary standing committee for the post and telecommunication ministry expressed their surprise in a meeting on Sunday.
“We were very astonished about the matter and recommended that the 3G coverage is expanded to cover all upazilas,” the watchdog’s chief, Md Abdus Sattar, said after the meet.
Mouazzamn Hossain Ratan and Khalid Mahmud Chowdhury, two other members of the panel, also criticised the move.
“After the 3G licenses are handed over to private operators, Teletalk will lose the race despite the government allowing them to provide the service for so long before others,” Mouazzam said.
Khalid said: “Teletalk failed to payback the value of people’s emotions. They also need to calculate where they would lie after the other private operators are allowed to provide 3G service.”
However, technology experts working for other private operators expressed their surprise about Teletalk’s expenditure for 3G and pointed out that the state-owned operator might have spent three to four times higher than the market price.
Requesting anonymity, chief of the technology wing of one of the operators told the Dhaka Tribune on Sunday: “All 64 district could have been covered with around $300m. However, they have managed to go at best to six districts.”
When asked about this, the telecom secretary said there might be different calculations. “But we stand by Teletalk’s project.”
Teletalk Managing Director Mujibur Rahman was present at the meeting but the Dhaka Tribune could not reach him for comments despite several attempts.
However, sources in the meeting said that the Teletalk MD informed them that, though the state-owned operator did not call for any expression of intents from vendors about 3G coverage in the remaining 58 districts, a number of them have already come forward.
Teletalk signed a contract with China Machinery Engineering Corporation on 27 December, 2010. The deal is effective from 6 January 2012. The government needs to repay the money in 20 years with an interest of 2% per annum, applicable after a 4-year grace period.
