Unplanned urbanisation a barrier to provide quality telecom services: AMTOB

Mobile phone operators today said unplanned urbanisation is a barrier to provide normal telecom services to the customers.

Operators said most of the buildings are close to each other and there is no gap or very small gap between them in dense urban area, which causes higher loss of penetration.

It has become a big challenge to provide proper indoor coverage from the outdoors, the operators said.

Officials of Grameenphone, Robi and Banglalink share the information at a virtual press conference organised by the Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh (AMTOB), a platform of mobile operators.

AMTOB Secretary General SM Farhad delivered the keynote address at the event. 

Grameenphone's Head of Public and Regulatory Affairs Hossain Sadat, Robi's Chief Corporate and Regulatory Officer Shahed Alam and Banglalink's Chief Corporate and Regulatory Affairs Officer Taimur Rahman also spoke.

In his keynote address, Farhad said Bangladesh has the eighth cheapest mobile internet in the global price index.

But, the tax rate and the cost of radio frequency in Bangladesh's telecom sector is much higher than other countries, including neighbouring India, he said.

It is also becoming tough to utilise normal capacity of mobile network in many places due to multi-story building in the capital, he added.

Again, there is rarely any place to install new Base Transceiver Station (BTS) or mobile tower to improve mobile network, he said.

For example, the operators had to struggle to find a place to set up a BTS inside Dhaka University area to ensure quality network.