10-Second Pulse
GP, Banglalink fail to meet BTRC deadline
Two leading mobile phone operators failed to implement the directive of telecom regulators to introduce 10-second pulse on each mobile call within the latest deadline that ended on Saturday.
Four other companies also failed to introduce flat call rate or same rate for every minute of a call within the same deadline set by the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC).
Officials of the largest cellphone company Grameenphone and second largest operator Banglalink, which did not introduce the mandatory 10-second pulse and flat call rate within the deadline, said the companies need more time.
Three mobile operators — Robi, Citycell and Airtel — launched the mandatory 10-second pulse on each calls on Saturday but Robi and Citycell did not introduce the flat call rate.
An official of the Airtel claimed the company’s existing call rates are flat.
The other operator, state-run Teletalk, implemented the BTRC decision on 10-second pulse within the first deadline of August 15 and flat call rate by Saturday.
BTRC in July asked the six operators to introduce 10-second pulse by August 15 to give more benefits to the consumers who were forced to pay bills for 1 minute even if they talk for 1 second in majority of the packages.
The commission later extended the deadline to September 15 after the operators sought more time for introducing the 10-second pulse. The commission also asked the operators to introduce flat tariff rate in the same directive.
Robi, the third largest operator with two crore subscriber, in a statement Saturday said it was introducing 10-second pulse for each calls, including interactive voice response, from Saturday in line with the BTRC directive.
Robi vice-president, communication and media relation, Mohiuddin Babar, however, told New Age that they were yet to introduce flat tariff rate in all packages. ‘We will introduce flat rate in all packages in phases starting from this week,’ he said.
GP, however, in a statement on Saturday said, ‘Grameenphone has every intention to implement BTRC’s directive on 10 second pulse but given the size of our customer base and number of products we need more time to satisfactorily complete this transition.’
‘We have already requested BTRC to extend the time to let us implement 10 second pulse in all our package by maintaining all relevant procedure to ensure customer satisfaction.’
The operator with around 4 crore subscriber said it had already started the process and re-launched one of its existing packages with 10 second pulse and flat tariff.
BTRC officials said GP on Thursday applied for a time extension of around 45 days for implementing the BTRC decision.
Banglalink still remained reluctant to implement the BTRC decision.
Its senior director, marketing, Shihab Ahmed in a statement said, ‘We believe it will be detrimental if the customers are left with no choice of their own if the 10 second pulse is implemented.’
It, however, said if the BTRC insists then they would implement 10 second pulse.
Another Banglalink official said the company was yet to introduce flat call rate.
He said they would implement the BTRC decision in phases.
Courtesy of New Age
