The telecom regulator would allow the cellular phone operators to run Long Term Evolution service along with the 3G or third generation cellular phone licence, said officials.
They said the regulator — Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission — had taken the decision to make the forthcoming auction for 3G spectrummore attractive to the operators.
‘We’ve taken the decision so that the operators build their network for LTE side by side 3G, as LTE has already been introduced in many countries,’ Sunil Kanti Bose, chairman of the regulatory body, told BSS on Sunday.
He said the operators could run LTE service in 800 MHZ, 900 MHZ and 1800
MHZ bands, but they (operators) had to take prior permission from the regulator.
‘The operators should buy more spectrum in the 3G auction to offer LTE service to its subscribers, as 5 MHz would not be enough for the service,’ he opined.
An acronym for Long Term Evolution, LTE is a 4G wireless communications standard developed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project that’s designed to provide up to 10x the speeds of 3G networks for mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, netbooks, notebooks and wireless hotspots.
The 4G technologies are designed to provide IP- based voice, data and multimedia streaming at speeds of at least 100 Mbit per second and up to as fast as 1 GBit per second. 4G LTE is one of several competing 4G standards along with Ultra Mobile Broadband and WiMax.
The regulator formed a guideline that is to be termed as ‘Cellular Mobile Phone Services (3G/4G/LTE) Regulatory and Licensing Guidelines, 2012’ and the licences issued through this guideline to be termed as ‘Cellular Mobile Phone Services (3G/4G/LTE) Operator Licence.’
In the guideline, the regular has kept the option for LTE service. If any operator shows interest to offer LTE service, it does not need to take licence again, as the 3G licence will permit it to provide the services.
On Feb 12, the Ministry of Post and Telecommunication finalised the licensing policy for the 3G services by fixing the value of spectrum $20 million per MHz.
-With New Age input
