Telecom moving onward

The fixed line telecom sector is invigorating for an enormous sprint in investment, as the telecom watchdog has finalised the frequency distribution to all 19 private licensees.

The telecom watchdog, Bangladesh Telecom Regulatory Commission (BTRC), which was set up in January 2002, has divided the country into five zones namely Central, South-East, North-East, South-West and North-West. It awarded licenses for four zones except the central zone comprising Dhaka city, Jinjira, Savar, Narayanganj district headquarters, Gazipur district headquarters and Tongi.

Of the 23 approved applications, Dhaka Telecom Limited, has been selected to have licences for all the four zones. Other companies who have been approved for four licences each are Telebarta Limited, National Telecommunications Network and Peoples Telecom. Keari Telecom and another company named GEP Telecom Limited bagged approval for two licences each. Of them GEP Telecom Limited was awarded licence in August 2004 for providing services in Chittagong Sylhet regions. Three companies -- Dominus Telecom Limited, QC Telecom Limited and OneTel Telecommunications Limited, a joint venture of Nitol Group and Absco Limited, qualified for one licence each. QC Telecom had received approval for another licence earlier in the first round.

In the first round, the BTRC had approved 10 licences for fixed phone networks. Of them eight licences have already been issued to four companies -- four licences to Bashundhara Communications Network Limited, two to Ranks Telecom Limited, a venture of Rangs Group, and one each to Jalalabad Telecom Limited and Bangla Phone, a joint venture of Nitol Group, Technoheaven Co Ltd and Bengal Communications International Inc. The JTL would launch operations in North-East zone including Sunamganj, Sylhet, Habiganj, Moulvibazar, Sherpur, Jamalpur, Netrakona, Mymensingh, Kishoreganj, Tangail, Munshiganj, Manikganj, Narayanganj excluding the district headquarters, Gazipur excluding the district headquarters, Tongi, Dhaka excluding Dhaka city, Jinjira and Savar

Of the remaining two, Westec Limited, a project of an internet service provider and QC Telecom Ltd will launch service in South-East Zone consisting of Brahmanbaria, Comilla, Chandpur, Lakshmipur, Noakhali, Feni, Chittagong, Cox's Bazar, Khagrachhari, Rangamati and Bandarban.

According to a decision by the BTRC, the 19 private companies will get frequencies in 1800 and 1900 Mega Hertz. The spectrum department of the BTRC has recently allocated the frequency to 10 companies among the 19 companies. Those local heavyweights are Bashundhara Communications Network Limited (BCNL), RanksTel, OneTel Communications Ltd. (OneTel), Telebarta, Jalalabad Telecom Limited (JTL), Banglaphone, Westeck Telecom Limited, Dominix Limited, GEP Telecom and Dhaka Telephone Co Ltd.

Since almost all the private operators will offer connections through WLL (Wireless in Local Loop) technology which is the cheapest technology being used in Public Switched Telecom Network (PSTN), also known as fixed line land phone, frequency therefore has become the single most important requirement for investment. The WLL technology has become popular especially in the developing countries. Unless a company gets the frequency, there is no way a company can open a letter of credit (L/C) in the banks for importing telecom equipment.

RanksTel and Telebarta have made preparations for investment in all four regions. OneTel Communications Ltd (OneTel) signed a contract to purchase all-IP CDMA network technology from UTStarcom, a global leader in IP access networking and services. Bay-phones, a joint venture project of Westeck.com Inc. USA and Westeck Limited, Bangladesh will operate its services in Chittagong, Chittagong Hill Tracts, Noakhali and Comilla areas at an initial stage targeting one lakh subscribers from February this year. The line-rent will be Tk 150 and call charge Tk 1.50 for first five minutes. The rate of phone connection will be Tk 9000 and potential subscribers will get phone connections within 48 hours.

The formal introduction of state-run BTTB mobile phone was on 28th December 2004 which is seen as a milestone in our telecom account. Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) would release SIM cards for 2.5 lakh mobile connections of GSM (Global System for Mobile) technology in the first phase, out of targeted 10 lakh connections under the scheme.

Besides this the Voice over IP (VoIP) has been legalised and the submarine cable connection to global information super highway (SEA-ME-WE-4) will be ready for service soon with 1.28 terabits per second. It will link 14 countries from Singapore to France via Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Italy with 16 landing points. It would mitigate our elite reliance from the expensive satellite-based solutions for international voice and data communications. It has been deploying SDH technology without closing the transmission loops. It is like building end-to-end roads without provisioning the traffic diversion during congestion or disturbance.

Over the last few years there has been a growth in companies dealing with VSAT communication primarily using SCPC technology. SCPC point-to-point connectivity is a trustworthy solution that can be afforded by a few multinational companies and ISPs operating in Bangladesh primarily due to monetary strength, but is not a cost-effective solution that can be afforded by most of the market. To further emphasise, DNS as a company has already installed and is running almost 70 percent of the VSAT circuits currently operating in the Bangladesh Market.

Established in November 2001 to provide nationwide connectivity SatComm, sister concern of DNS group established the Earth Station in Gazipur. In November 2002 SatComm received nationwide licence from BTRC, being is the first operator to be issued such a license by the telecom watchdog in Bangladesh.

To make this development more smooth telecom vendors like Ericsson AB, Siemens, Motorola, NOKIA Networks Limited, Huawei Technologies, ZTE Corporation, ALCATEL, UTStarcom are working to provide technical solutions to these wireline and wireless telecom carriers.

From the above review it is vivid that the telecommunications market in Bangladesh is moving onwards which is a very good sign for our telecommunications infrastructure.

Md. Saifur Rahman, a former Lecturer at IUB and EWU, now works as an Assistant Solution Manager, Ericsson AB.