The country’s second largest mobile phone operator Banglalink on Wednesday announced that it would launch the 3G services in some selective areas of the Dhaka city by October.
Banglalink on the day gave a demonstration of the 3G services at a press conference held at Westin Hotel in the capital. Banglalink chief executive officer Ziad Shatara and its parent company Vimpelcom’s chief operating officer Jan Edvard Thygesen were present, among others.
Ziad said Banglalink would launch the 3G services in Chittagong and Sylhet by December and the entire Dhaka would come under the 3G services by that time.
‘We are hopeful that we will provide an excellent 3G experience to our customers,’ he said.
He said Banglalink would have no problem to support its subscribers with 5MHz spectrum which the company bought in an auction on September 8 with an amount of $105 million.
‘Not all our customers have 3G-enabled handsets and we think in the next three to four years we will go fine with the spectrum. The government have plans to unveil more spectrum band in coming days, and, if we need, we can get more spectrums that time,’ he said when asked if 5MHz spectrum would be enough to support its subscribers.
Ziad also said that the company would invest $300 million in the entire 3G network development in one year.
Speaking on the occasion, Edvard said, ‘Vimplecom is very serious about the Bangladesh market, as we have demonstrated through our continuous investments in the areas of customer experience improvement.’
He said in such a market only one operator was in profit after so many years of operation.
‘So, it means that regulatory support to the industry is not adequate,’ he said.
-With New Age input
