The New Nation - Internet Edition

Bangladesh's telecoms regulator, the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission has published its draft guidelines for issuing Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) licenses. The national licenses are being proposed - two in the 2.3Ghz band and one in the 2.5Ghz band.

The incumbent operators are banned from bidding - and the bidders are limited to having 60 per cent foreign shareholding.

The licensees will be authorized to develop and operate a telecommunications network to provide nationwide BWA services based on IEEE 802.16e (WiMAX) standards. The system can be point-to-multipoint or mesh radio systems consisting of BWA distribution hub stations and their associated subscriber stations (or BWA access devices). The last mile solution may be done in conjunction with WiFi.

The operators and end-users are allowed to use their equipment in fixed locations, in a nomadic manner or with a fully mobile capability, at their choice.

Interestingly, the draft proposals will mandate that all the licensed operators will have to share the same tower and the existing infrastructures.

The proposals will award a contiguous 30 MHz of unpaired spectrum from 2.3 GHz band (23xx-23xx MHz and 23xx-23xx MHz) to 2 licensees. A contiguous 30 MHz of unpaired spectrum from 2.5 GHz band (25xx-26xx MHz) will be assigned to 1 licensee. 2615-2620 MHz is kept as guard block between TDD and future FDD assignment. 30MHz contiguous channel will be allocated to each operator to provide BWA services. Per channel bandwidth should be either 5 or 10 MHz.

Subject to the availability, two pair of frequency will be assigned form any of the 18, 23, 26 and 38 GHz band to build their own point to point link.

The existing ISP license holders operating in 2.3, 3.5, 5.2, 5.4 GHz and 700 MHz will be allowed to continue their wireless Internet services for 5 years with pre-WiMAX equipments - but will not be allowed to replace any existing equipment.