State Minister Shahriar Alam vents anger at Grameenphone’s poor service

State Minister for Foreign Affairs Md Shahriar Alam has taken to Facebook to vent his anger at Bangladesh’s top mobile phone operator Grameenphone for call drops and poor services.

“What is the problem with GP? Impossible to make calls. Call drops. Couple of months ago they used to send apology SMS after call drop, no trace of that even!” he wrote on his official Facebook page, giving the sign “feeling angry”.
 
bdnews24.com last month ran a report over complaints lodged with the regulator BTRC that Grameenphone reneged on a compensatory talk-time offer without informing customers.

After the report, users poured scorn on bdnews24.com’s Facebook fan page about the internet and customer services of the Grameenphone.

Clients were unambiguous in criticising the Grameenphone’s services with one even went to the extent of suggesting that the company should be “forced out of the country”.
 
Grameenphone, majority-owned by Norway’s state-owned Telenor, has more than 50 million subscribers in Bangladesh.
 
It has the largest subscriber base among mobile phone operators in the country.
 
The state minister on Wednesday also wrote that he did not get signal from his residence at his parliamentary constituency in Rajshahi, and that the operator never looked into his two year old complaints.

“Also very poor network at Arani. I hardly get signal from my bedroom on the 1st floor and there is no building close to my residence to weaken the signal.

“I requested them (GP) two years ago to look into it, but no improvement,” Shahriar Alam wrote.

State Minister for Posts and Telecommunications Tarana Halim commented on Shahriar Alam’s Facebook post.

“I have been repeatedly asking them (GP) to improve their service quality including call drop problem,” she wrote. 

“Even to Telenor. Seems they are more interested to make money than provide quality service. They are our valued development partner, it is time they act like one,” she added.

Later, Grameenphone issued a statement to say that “it will address the minister’s concerns as effectively as possible”.

“We take any network issue very seriously which is why we are investing across the entire nation, including Dhaka, to increase number of network sites and new 3G technology,” it said.