Several ICT-based organisations on Wednesday asked the telecom regulator to reduce internet price at the end-user level or face indefinite sit-in demonstration from June 12.
They set the 15-day timeframe to fix the internet price at
Tk 0.10 for per megabyte or Tk 10 for per Gigabyte.‘If the demand is not met by the stipulated time, not-stop sit-in programme would be started from June 12,’ Julius Chowdhury, an organiser of the movement, told reporters at a news briefing at Dhaka Reporters’ Unity office in the capital.
He also informed that they would form a bigger platform for the movement for reducing the internet price.
Several ICT and social entertainment-based web portals and organisations, and the Bangladesh Telecom Subscribers’ Forum jointly organised the briefing.
Julius, also the chief executive of dearjulius.com, said that the government had trimmed the bandwidth price to a minimum level, but the end-users were not getting its benefit.
In addition, the mobile phone operators are taking Tk 20,921 for one gigabyte of internet under its P1 package which mismatches with the government’s ‘digital Bangladesh’ campaign, he added.
Shakil Arefin, chief executive of BDsoft Inc, said that the ISPs were selling bandwidth at higher rate to the end users after buying it at low price.
Besides, they are sharing 20 more lines to the subscribers although they were supposed to share four lines, he added. ‘They (ISPs) are taking the opportunities due to the indifference attitude of the regulator.’
Admin of PC helpline BD Rubel Ahmed and Fahad Islam, Telecom Subscribers’ Forum general secretary Shardul Ahmed Sena, and ICT of Bangladesh Group moderator MA Kabir, among others, were present at the press briefing.
They have opened a facebook page: http://fb.com/ICTmovement with a slogan ‘Development of the country through the development of ICT.’ to establish a network among the IT people for launching greater movement.
The telecom regulator had sought opinion of the cellular phone users
on reduction of mobile internet bandwidth charge seven months ago,
but the authorities are yet to make a decision on the rate cut.
As a result, the mobile operators continued to charge P1 package subscribers Tk 0.02 a kilobyte, a rate they have been charging for the last nine years.
At present, 3.80 crore people in the country are using internet, of which 90 per cent use internet on mobile phone.
-With New Age input
