Warid hits mobile phone market by April

Abu Saeed Khan

bdnews24.com Technology Editor

Dhaka, Jan 14 (bdnews24.com) -- Warid Telecom has planned to launch mobile phone services by April, an official with the company said Sunday.

"We worked hard to make it earlier, but the political situation has forced us to defer," a senior official of the company told bdnews24.com, asking not to be named.

Warid will go for "soft launch" this month. It will give away complimentary subscriptions among a select group of individuals. They will make "test calls" and the operator will adjust its network's quality based on their comments.

The country's sixth mobile phone operator will formally begin its nationwide mobile services no later than April. Users have to dial 016 followed by six more digits to access Warid's network.

"We don't want to enter the market hurriedly with compromised quality," said Warid's chief executive Muneer Farooqui. He said he was upbeat about Warid's success despite its belated entry into the fiercely competitive Bangladesh mobile phone market.

"There is enough room to grow and good quality at affordable rates has become important," he said.

In February 2006, Warid engaged Ericsson, Nokia and Motorola to supply, deploy and operate its network, with a rollout scheduled for October 2006.

But a payment dispute with Nokia disrupted the plan.

The Finnish vendor walked out on the deal on October 27. Ericsson promptly acquired Nokia's abandoned jobs and engaged full forces to speed up work.

But prolonged political unrest slowed work. "We timely set up the towers and completed all work but failed to deploy equipment at hundreds of base station sites," a frustrated Ericsson official told bdnews24.com.

The Swedish vendor is desperate to catch up. "We are working round the clock to fast deliver and install the base stations," he said.

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