Cell phone charges
This refers to the DS Letters page of Dec. 31, 03. I have to thank Mr Molla Mohammad Shaheen of DU for narrating the plight of the cell phone users in Bangladesh due to high charges. Specially, the pre-paid subscribers of GP seems to be a group cursed by the GP management itself. Just imagine that the payment for such usage goes into the account of GP at least 2/3 months in advance (GP sells "pre-paid" cards to dealers and dealers sell to subscribers who "use" the amount for up to 45 days). Even after such guaranteed prior income, GP is yet to come up with a revised tariff-structure for their pre-paid users (they reduced the charges for the post-paid ones long time ago). Is it simply because they intend to compel each existing pre-paid user to buy an additional post-paid package? While the pre-paid subscribers are paying through their nose @Tk.6.90 (including VAT) per minute for all calls (even inside the same city), we saw an announcement by the BTTB that now one can call USA and Canada for as little as Tk.7.50 per minute! So, should we just appreciate the cell phone companies of Bangladesh that, at least, they are providing us with phones and we should not complain about their per minute charge?
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