The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) will offer long-term evolution (LTE), a fourth generation (4G) broadband communication standard, to mobile operators with the upcoming 3G services.
“We have the ecosystem, and operators can take the technological neutrality to offer the LTE services with 3G,” BTRC Chairman Sunil Kanti Bose Sunday told a meeting with the Telecom Reporters Network, Bangladesh at his office.
He said the LTE should be a demand and the operators needed to take preparations about it when they would sit for the spectrum auction.
However, the mobile operators disagree with the chairman’s comment.
“To launch the LTE in a proper way we need at least 10megahartz [MHz] spectrum but there is not enough. We can provide the same services in 3G standard. At the same time, the LTE handsets are problematic,” chief technology officer of a mobile operator told the Dhaka Tribune.
If the LTE is launched in Bangladesh, it will be the third LTE-providing country in the sub-continent after Sri Lanka and India.
The 4G technologies are designed to provide IP-based voice, data and multimedia streaming at speeds of at least 100Mbit per second and as high as 1Gbit per second. The LTE is one of the several competing 4G standards alongside Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB) and WiMax.
The regulator enacted a guideline named “Cellular Mobile Phone Services (3G/4G/LTE) Regulatory and Licensing Guidelines 2012” and the licences issued through the guidelines are to be labelled as “Cellular Mobile Phone Services (3G/4G/LTE) Operator Licence.”
In the guideline, the BTRC has kept the option for LTE service for operators showing interest without taking a separate licence for it.
The BTRC chairman said he had taken the decision to make the forthcoming auction for 3G spectrum more attractive to the operators.
The BTRC says operators could run the LTE service in 800MHz, 900MHz and 1,800MHz bands but will have to take permission from the regulator.
“The operators should buy more spectrum in the 3G auction to offer the LTE service to its subscribers as 5MHz would not be enough for the service,” Sunil observed.
Market sources say LTE-enabled handsets are not yet available in the market, so offering the service will be very challenging.
Meanwhile, with just one day left before the deadline for depositing earnest money for the September 8 3G auction ends, the BTRC Sunday extended the deadline by three more days as the operators did not want to deposit the money before unsettled issues were settled.
“Extension of the deadline was required as the National Board of Revenue is yet to finalise the report on the SIM replacement issue,” Sunil said.
He said the other schedules of the auction would, however, remain unchanged.
Earlier in the day, Grameenphone CEO Vivek Sood, Banglalink CEO Ziad Shatara, Airtel CEO Chris Tobit and Robi Chief Financial Officer Mahtab Uddin Ahmed met with the BTRC chairman.
Mahtab later told the Dhaka Tribune that the regulator had to resolve the SIM replacement tax and amortisation issue first, and then they would decide about depositing the earnest money.
Meanwhile, Citycell sources said they were fully prepared to deposit the earnest money on the date.
