The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

The telecom companies are heavily burdened with operation expenditure in comparison with their investments.

The organisations are facing financial loss as they have to build infrastructures and maintain it for their respective subscribers of the same place. This, in turn, cause the government loss of huge revenue.

The telecom companies of the country have invested huge amount of money in the sector. But the companies fail to extend service to people living in far flung areas of the country as their investment on building and maintenance of infrastructure are located mainly in the capital Dhaka and one or two in divisional cities of the country. Many parts of the country are also deprived of telecom and Internet services.

On the other hand, the presence of the companies in the same place creates uneven rivalry among the telecom companies as they try to take upper hand to their rivals to survive.

The companies have become desperate to increase investment and new services to retain their subscribers though the uneven rat race causes increase of operational expenditure. As a result the telecom companies could not earn profit, opined telecom specialists. The telecommunication companies have admitted their loss and to reduce the loss some of them have opted for merger.

Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) issued Nationwide Telecommunication Transmission Network (NTTN) licence to reduce the loss of the companies. According to licence, the licensee company could build, maintain and develop the network countrywide and could provide service to telecommunication service providers, Internet Service Providers (ISP), Cable Operators and Public Switched Telephone Networks (PSTN).

The establishment of such common NTTN will help reduce operational expenditure of the companies to 40 per cent, said the telecom specialists. The only NTTN licensee Fibre @ Home has already established two pilot projects. The company will be able to provide service to the interested companies.

The Managing Director of Fibre @ Home, Moynul Haque Siddique said that his company would establish, develop and maintain NTTN but could not provide any internet, telecom or cable TV service. They could only render network service to the companies he added.

If NTTN is established throughout the country, the operational cost of telecom companies will reduce and foreign currency will be saved, he said.

GrameenPhone, Banglalink, Warid, Aktel, Citycell and only public company Teletalk are providing telecommunication services in the country. Among the six, only GrameenPhone see the face of profit.