She called for an end to ‘this injustice’ in the meeting on Monday.
Tarana said the subscribers had allegations against all the operators, but most against the largest one – Grameenphone.
The minister called the telco CEOs to her office at the Secretariat in the wake of rising allegations from the subscribers.
She showed a Facebook post of State Minister for Foreign Affairs Md Shahriar Alam on projector at the beginning of the meeting at 4:30pm in the presence of reporters.
Alam, disappointed at call drops and poor service of Grameenphone, wrote: “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 then used the emoticon “feeling angry”.
Tarana also showed on projector and read out allegations against Grameenphone like – ‘Behaving like East India Company’, charging extra money for package offer, harassment at customer care centre, and slow internet.
Addressing Grameenphone CEO Rajeev Sethi, the minister said, “There are many complaints against GP. Since you have a bigger number of subscribers, you’ll have to pay more attention to these complaints.”
Sethi sat in the chair with his head hanging low.
Tarana Halim said there were allegations against the other operators as well.
“There are dropped calls but there is no compensation for them. It has to be settled,” she said.
GP’s Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Mahmud Hossain said a slot of their 3G spectrum was facing ‘intersection problem’ (intersects with another slot) in 11 northern districts. This was also causing call drops, he said.
Banglalink CEO Shatara said the dropped call issue was not of the mobile-phone operators alone. The IGW, ICX and NTTN services, too, were part of the call-drop issue; but the subscribers were only accusing the carriers.
He called for joint action to thrash out a solution.
Robi's Company Secretary Mohammed Shahedul Alam said the mobile companies use microwave for their service.
He said fog sometimes disrupts microwave leading to some problems. This problem can be solved if the mobile operators are given fibre connectivity, he added.
Post and Telecommunications Division Secretary Md Faizur Rahman Chowdhury, BTRC Vice-Chairman Brig Gen (Retd) Md Ahsan Habib Khan, BTRC Director General (Systems and Service) Brig Gen Md Emdad ul Bari, among others, were present at the meeting.
According to BTRC, the number of SIM cards sold to the subscribers crossed 130 million in the 160 million-strong country by the end of August.