Pre-bid meeting on mobile number portability tomorrow

The telecom regulator has called upon interested entities to attend the pre-bid meeting tomorrow for the auction of the mobile number portability service licence, which will empower customers to switch operators without changing their numbers.

Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission will hold an auction on September 21 to award MNP licence to a company.

BTRC officials said the last date to submit applications is August 11.

The base price for the MNP licence auction is Tk 1 crore and the MNP licensee must have three years of experience in handling at least one crore subscribers, according to guidelines.

The licence will be valid for 15 years and the licensed company will have to share revenue with the government at 5.5 percent from the second year of operations.

The MNP licensee will have to acquire capabilities to serve 1 percent of the total customer base by six months after getting the licence, 5 percent in one year and 10 percent in five years.

A subscriber will be able to switch to any operator by keeping his existing mobile number and paying not more than Tk 30, and will have to continue with the new operator for a minimum of 90 days.

In June 2013, the telecom regulator asked mobile phone operators to introduce the MNP service by January 2014.

But operators said they were unable to do so, citing that the time allotted for implementing such a service was too short.

Later, BTRC decided to appoint a third-party company to implement the service.

Currently, 72 countries, including neighbouring India and Pakistan, have adopted the popular system, with Singapore being the pioneer.