The government will take a decision on the unsold three slots of the 3G spectrum, the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) Chairman has said.
Published : 09 Sep 2013, 12:17 AM
Private mobile-phone operators Grameenphone, Banglalink, Robi and Airtel took part in the bidding after the BTRC had put 50 MHz up for sale on Sunday.
State-owned Teletalk, that will get 10 MHz, is trialling the 3G services.
A total of 25 MHz was sold at $21 million each at the auction held in Dhaka but the operators did not show interest for the remaining 15 MHz.
However, 15 MHz of spectrum – 38 percent of the total spectrum worth $315 million – remained unsold.
“I had assumed earlier that this much spectrum would remain unsold,” said BTRC Chairman Sunil Kanti Bose after the auction.
“The four operators will not get the unsold spectrum even if they want it but the government will decide allocating the spectrum later based on demand,” he said.
The government got $525 million (Tk 40.81 billion approximately) from the sale.
Bose said around 20 percent mobile-phone users in Bangladesh had 3G-enabled mobile handsets and the operators had bought spectrum considering the number of their customers.
“The sale of 25 MHz was important, not the remaining spectrum,” he said.
Bose believed the amount invested by the operators will turn out to be useful for their business in the long run.
He said the government did not face losses due to the unsold three slots.
There were no real competition in the bidding since no new operators had come forward, the BTRC chief said.
“Grameenphone bought a 10 MHz spectrum block considering the number of its customers (44.6 million) and it is okay,” he said.
Asked if Banglalink, with 27.3 million customers, would be able to provide ‘quality service’ with the 5 MHz spectrum, Bose said its officials would be in the best position to comment on that.
Grameephone will have to pay $210 million for its 10 MHz spectrum.
The other three operators bought 5 MHz blocks each at the same price — $21 million per MHz.
As per the 3G policy, the licences will be valid for 15 years.
The four private carriers deposited bid earnest money on Aug 29 to take part in the auction but Bangladesh’s first and only CDMA operator Citycell dropped out of the bidding as they failed to submit their earnest money due to ‘financial crisis’.