Mobile top-up capped at Tk 500 a day

The telecom regulator has capped top-ups for prepaid mobile connections to Tk 500 per day, much to the exasperation of operators.

The move will cause great inconvenience for subscribers, affect revenues, and impact services and the whole digitisation process, the operators said.       

Before Monday's directive from Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission there was no daily limit for top-ups, though a single recharge could not exceed Tk 1,000.

The telecom regulator, however, did not give any specific reason for the cap, but a senior official said it was to curb illegal termination of incoming overseas calls.

"It was issued on the government's prerogative. BTRC is just following orders," he said, asking not to be named.

Many existing bundle packages, all approved by the regulator, are larger than Tk 500, and the cap will directly affect the sales of those, said TIM Nurul Kabir, secretary general of the Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh.

Considering the 3 percent supplementary duty and 15 percent VAT on mobile recharge, a subscriber ultimately enjoys Tk 422 of a Tk 500 recharge, officials said.

A senior executive of a mobile operator said it is not possible to implement the directive.

"No handset and internet bundle pack will exist if we implement it," he said, adding that customers will not be able to use mobile financial services like buying bus or train tickets as a result.

The mobile operators now want a consultation meeting with the BTRC to voice out their concerns, Kabir said.

At the meeting, they will request the regulator to not only remove the daily bar but also increase the single recharge limit to Tk 2,000. However, BTRC, in the same directive, tripled the allowed volume of person-to-person mobile transactions to Tk 300 per transaction.

The daily cap order is on a trial basis, and will be revised if necessary according to market feedback, said Shahjahan Mahmood, chairman of BTRC. 

The daily cap does not apply to post-paid connections, said the directive signed by Mohammad Zulfikar, BTRC's director of systems and services. Post-paid subscribers can continue to pay their bills of any amount on the same day.