Better services hooked 30 million subscribers to Banglalink, says CEO

Clients satisfaction and making good on promises of better services helped Banglalink touch the 30 million subscribers mark, CEO Ziad Shatara says.

The telecoms operator plans to reach high-speed internet to the far-flung regions of Bangladesh by making the services even better.

Banglalink, a subsidiary of the Amsterdam-based global telecoms group VimpelCom, started operations here in 2005.

The company is a leader in making it easy for Bangladeshis from across the broad spectrum of society to get connected on the mobile phone.

Shatara took bdnews24.com through different aspects of the operations on the company's reaching the milestone at its Gulshan headquarters on Sunday.

bdnews24.com: Say something about your achievement of 30 million subscribers.

Ziad Shatara: We always try to make our services at lower cost. The nature of services and network quality is the main key to our success. 

bdnews24.com: What were the challenges you encountered in this journey?

Shatara: Thirty-million subscribers, this is a big number. Customer needs more and more services and lower cost.  How to expedite customer needs is a big challenge. We are very good at this.

bdnews24.com: What was your investment for network development? How would you define your new modernised network?

Shatara: Banglalink has been investing heavily in its state of the art network modernisation program over the last couple of years. In doing so, the company is confident that its technical capabilities are the best in the market.

Around $300 million was raised from the country’s first ever foreign currency denomination bond issued to invest in modernising Banglalink’s network. All 64 districts of the country are already under Banglalink’s 3G network coverage.

Banglalink is starting the unique service feature of reimbursing customers if there is a call drop. It is an unprecedented step for the mobile market in Bangladesh. It proofs that Banglalink has the best network.

bdnews24.com: What do you think about the future of data business in Bangladesh?

Shatara: I think like any other country in the world Bangladesh is not different.  The future of mobile internet is growing up, the amount of data consuming is phenomenon. We expect this to continue.

bdnews24.com: What’s the future plan of Banglalink after achieving the new milestone of 30 million customers and acknowledged as the fastest 3G service provider amongst all operators of the country?

Shatara: We want to make sure our customer expectation.  We grow to reach more and more customer in the rural area. Many customer are waiting for our service because our quality and good service. We believe that we will reach those areas.

Bangladesh has just introduced 3G, BTRC is preparing to go next generation network or LTE or 4G. Do you think it is the right time to introduce 4G in Bangladesh?

Think about LTE, how many people will benefit from LTE?  3G Handset penetration are extremely low in the market. I prefer to expand the 3g market, push the 3g market in rural area than go to LTE.

bdnews24.com: Telecom operators often say that they are unable to run their businesses because of the Bangladesh telecom regulatory framework and taxation policies. What is your opinion, how should the framework be?

Shatara: It happens not only in Bangladesh. That’s happened everywhere in the world, if you look the current regulator we believe that they have done a great job to driving the industry.

I have my own differences with the regulator but that does not mean that I do not appreciate them. For example, I am a big fan of market liberalisation. Regulators still protect the market.

They think that by regulating the services and the prices they will protect the customers. Our view on this is that there is no need of that kind of regulation. 

But many good things have done by the regulator recently. For example, BTRC has cut international incoming call termination rates and re-fixed the structure of revenue-sharing among stakeholders. If we are not happy we will not stay at this market, so we are happy.

Taxation is a fact of life. Doing business in the capitalism regime, you pay tax for the welfare of the country and the people.

Now the problem we see that the taxation system we have in Bangladesh is not as friendly as we want to do. Government has long term good vision by 2021. More relax taxation regime would help the government to achieve the goal.