Joint venture firm Infozillion BD Teletech Consortium Limited will provide the much awaited mobile number portability (MNP) service, as the telecom regulator has selected it for the job.
Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) will formally announce the name of the firm as the MNP operator tomorrow, said officials.
Talking to BSS, Managing Director of Infozillion BD Teletech Consortium Limited Mabroor Hossain today said they have received letter from the regulator a week ago which “asked us to deposit the licensing fee within a month”.
“We will take the license through depositing the required fee by the end of this month,” he added.
Replying to a query, Mabroor said: “Although we have a time span of 180 days to start the operation, but we have planned to introduce the service as early as possible.”
The license acquisition fees have been set at Taka 10 crore and the winning company will have to share 15 percent of its revenues with the government from the second year onwards. The company must provide the service within 180 days of getting the license.
Earlier, State Minister for Posts and Telecommunications Tarana Halim told BSS that they are determined to introduce the service in January for the mobile phone users.
Officials said BTRC has recommended joint venture firm Infozillion BD Teletech Consortium for the license, as it has been on top obtaining the highest marks from the technical evaluation committee among five firms.
Later, the Posts and Telecommunications Division (PTD) forwarded the recommendation of BTRC to the Prime Minister’s Office for the final approval.
BTRC recommendation showed that Infozillion BD Teletech Consortium has scored 92 followed by Greentech Mediation Limited 87, Brazil-Bangladesh Consortium 84, REVE Number Limited 82 and Royal Green Limited 53.
Infozillion BD Teletech Consortium is a joint venture of Infozillion BD Limited and Teletech DOO, Slovenia where the foreign partner has 55.9 percent share. But, it has given undertaking that once the license is granted, Infozillion and Teletech will set up new special purpose venture (local company) and foreign shareholding will be cut down below 51 percent.
About the stake of the joint venture, Mabroor Hossain claimed they have already revised the partnership agreement as per the directives of the guideline.
MNP is a technology that allows customers to change their operators after a specific timeframe retaining their existing eleven digit number. The government has fixed Taka 30 as charge for the service.
BTRC has been trying to introduce the MNP service, which would help bring more competition to the market and improve the service quality, for the last few years.
Currently, some 72 countries including neighboring India and Pakistan have introduced the service with Singapore being the pioneer in this field, reports BSS.
