BTRC bans Robi’s e-SIM sale

The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) has banned the sale of Robi's e-SIM within one week of launching the service.

"The division concerned found that Robi launched the service without taking the commission's approval. Therefore, we asked them to stop selling the e-SIM services," BTRC Chairman Shyam Sunder Sikder told The Business Standard on Wednesday.

Mobile operators are obliged to take the telecom regulator's approval before launching any services, said sources at the BTRC.
On 22 February, Robi Axiata Limited announced the start of an e-SIM sale, following two other private telecom operators – Grameenphone and Banglalink.

Launching the service, the company said customers will enjoy the best Internet experience in the country with the 4.5G Robi e-SIM.

"We are yet to receive any letter regarding our e-sim service from BTRC. Hence, we are unable to make any comment on the issue," Robi said in a statement.

At present, Robi is the country's second largest mobile operator with a 5.46 crore subscriber base while Grameenphone is the top operator with 7.93 crore subscribers. Banglalink is in the third position with 4.01 crore users.

The total number of SIM subscribers in the country now stands at 18.08 crore.

In March last year, Grameenphone introduced e-SIM service in Bangladesh for the first time. In December that year, Banglalink also launched the service.

Being the second largest operator, Robi attempted to launch the service as the third operator, whereas state-owned Teletalk has yet to launch the product.