Five companies qualify to bid for appointment as mobile-number portability operator

The BTRC has selected five companies as qualified applicants for taking part in the auction to become Bangladesh's first mobile number portability operator.

They are-

>> REVE Number Ltd (foreigner partner company T4B Sp. z o.o of Poland)

>> Greentech International Ltd (foreign partner company MEDIAFON of Lithuania)

>> Infozillion BD Teletech Consortium Ltd (foreign partner company Teletech d.o.o of Slovenia)

>> Brazil-Bangladesh Consortium (foreign partner company ClearTech of Brazil)

>> Roots Infotech Ltd (foreign partner company Systor Group of Norway)

The telecoms regulators announced the names of the companies on Wednesday.

The auction to appoint the mobile number portability operator will be held on Sep 28.

A BTRC official told bdnews24.com the five companies were chosen from the six that had applied to take part in the auction.

BTRC chief Shahjahan Mahmood on Jun 14 said they hoped to introduce the MNP facility by this year after issuing licences following the bidding process.

The use of a mobile-phone number over a period of time makes it a part of an individual or organisation’s identity. But, they often have to switch operators to take the advantage of a better network or more competitive plans on offer.

The advantage MNP offers is that subscribers will be able to switch operators without having to change the number.

The finance ministry gave its clearance for the guidelines on the long-awaited facility in December last year, after which the regulators started working on the bidding process.

In January this year, the BTRC included specific criteria for bidders in the guidelines and forwarded it to the Prime Minister’s Office for approval, which was cleared in May.

The finance ministry has cleared that mobile operators will charge Tk 30 from a subscriber for the facility.

A subscriber will have to wait for 90 days after availing the facility to switch operators.

Besides countries in Europe and America, operators in India and Pakistan offer the MNP service to their subscribers.

The BTRC has set Tk 100,000 as the fee to register for the auction, Tk 1 million as bid earnest money and Tk 10 million as the base price.

The licence will be awarded for 15 years with an annual fee of Tk 2 million, and from the second year onwards, the company will have to share 5.5 percent of its revenue with the government. It will also have to give Tk 10 million as bank guarantee.

After it expires, the company will be able to renew the licence for another five years following clearance from the government.