BTRC’s decision ‘inappropriate and illegal,’ says GP CEO

Grameenphone Chief Executive Officer Michael Patrick Foley has termed the decision of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) to block its bandwidth over outstanding dues "inapropriate" and "illegal."

The BTRC and GP can sit together to find out a possible solution to this issue, said Foley while addressing a press conference in a city hotel on Sunday.

On July 4, the BTRC directed all International Internet Gateway operators to cut down 30 percent bandwidth of the total usage of Grameenphone and 15 percent for Robi.

The telecom regulator took such punitive measures for the first time against the mobile network operators, aiming to bring discipline in the telecom sector.

Grameenphone has an outstanding dues of Tk12,579 crore while Robi’s dues amount to Tk867.24 crore, according to BTRC audits.

Industry insiders have, however, opined that the move against the two leading mobile network operators will ultimately affect customers in terms of quality of services, especially making calls and using internet.

The BTRC ran technical and financial audits on the two networks since its inception to 2015.

Before this decision, Grameenphone consumed 209.93 Gbps bandwidth, which was brought down to 146.95 Gbps after the move.

Earlier, the regulator had suspended issuing of No Objection Certificate for importing equipment to run the network.

According to the BTRC, as of May Grameenphone has 7.48 crore active connections while Robi has 4.77 crore connections and about half of them use the internet.