Call drops… slow internet speed… weak signal… grievances of mobile users that have become all too vocal since the global coronavirus pandemic took root in Bangladesh in March, forcing people to shift the majority of their life activities online.
But, Bangladesh’s mobile infrastructure was not equipped for this surge in traffic, because of the fault of the operators and the telecom regulator.
Three aspects determine the quality of mobile experience: spectrum, towers and fibre optics. But for Bangladesh’s four carriers, only the first aspect is in its hands, leaving them at the mercy of the regulator and third parties for the other two.
To rationalise the number of towers in the country and give smaller operators a fair shot, the government in 2018 decided to separate the network business from telecom services.
Accordingly, in October that year, the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission awarded the licences for tower operation to four companies: edotco Bangladesh, Summit Towers, Kirtonkhola Tower Bangladesh and AB Hightech Consortium.
Since the awarding of tower licences, the mobile operators were forbidden from setting up any new towers of their own as this exercise would be taken over by the four new tower companies.Maintenance and relocation were also forbidden.
The four companies were supposed to take over the towers from the mobile operators and also build new ones.
Save for edotco, none of the tower licence holders has been able to start their operations within the deadline of May 1, 2019, meaning virtually no new towers were set up in the country in the past two years amidst a fast-growing demand -- leaving mobile operators in a limbo.
At the end of October 2018, there were 15.6 crore active mobile connections. That number stood at 16.7 crore at the end of September this year.
During the period, the number of mobile internet users increased by 1.5 crore to 10.2 crore, according to data from the BTRC.
And mobile data usage more than doubled in that time, particularly during the pandemic, which has turbocharged digitalisation and is compelling subscribers to make the switch to smartphone from feature phone.
Thanks to the need for social distancing to keep the lethal pathogen at bay, people are now holding office meetings, taking classes, seeking healthcare advice, doing shopping and banking, paying bills and watching entertainment content from one’s handheld device.
This suggests, there has been a tremendous strain on the current mobile infrastructure and can partly be blamed for the poor service quality.
But, there appears to be finally some movement on that front: on Thursday, the BTRC held a meeting with the stakeholders.
At the meeting, Summit Towers and AB High Tech Consortium agreed to set up 559 mobile towers within the next three months for Robi and Banglalink.
Summit Towers will set up 259 towers for Banglalink and AB High Tech 300 towers for Robi.
Of the 259 towers, 150 will be up and running by next month and the rest by February next year, said Md. Arif Al Islam, managing director of Summit Communications, the parent company of Summit Towers.
“We are late to building the towers after getting the licence for many reasons including the agreement with operators, the BTRC approvals and the pandemic,” Islam said, adding that each tower costs Tk 20-30 lakh for setting up.
Summit Towers had applied for a waiver of the licence fee of Tk 10 crore for two years a few months ago but the telecom ministry has turned down the request, he added.
Due to the pandemic work has stalled, said Amanullah Chowdhury, chief executive officer of AB Hightech Consortium, adding that the company will not be able to start work before December.
“Since we have to work all over the country, it may take longer than the agreed timeframe to set up the towers,” he added.
The tower licence holders told Dhaka Tribune on condition of anonymity that the main reason for the delay is the financial viability.
“Four companies are servicing four operators. There is not much of a business to be had under this arrangement,” said one high official of a tower licence holder requesting anonymity to speak candidly on the matter.
Kirtankhola Tower Bangladesh is wrapping up negotiations with operators, said Anis Ahmed, its head of infrastructure services.
“We hope to start construction of the towers in different parts of the country soon,” he added.
Edotco could not be reached for comments.
BTRC Chairman Md Jahurul Haque called upon the all tower construction licensees to work jointly and collaborate with the mobile operators in the meeting on Thursday.
On the other hand, mobile operators are desperately waiting for the towers. They are currently serving the customers with 28,000 towers, which they say is not enough.
“The lack of mobile tower is one of the main causes of a call drop,” said Shahed Alam, the chief corporate and regulatory officer at Robi.
If there are not enough towers the spectrum will not work properly. Both spectrum and tower should be balanced.
Between January and August, Robi had 48.2 crore dropped calls, according to the BTRC.
The country’s number two operator says the number is less than the 2 per cent threshold fixed by the telecom regulator.
“It is less than 1 per cent of our calls. So after setting up more mobile towers, this percentage will be even lower,” Alam said, adding that Robi plans to strike deals for 2,500 towers.
Data on the total number of calls made during the period could not be obtained. Call drop data from the previous years could not be accessed.
Banglalink, the country’s third-largest operator, also said its call drop ratio is less than 1 per cent, said Taimur Rahman, its chief corporate and regulatory affairs officer.
“Call drop depends on several issues including the mobile tower. Our call drop rate is much lower than the benchmark set by BTRC.”
In the first eight months of this year, the operator had 14.7 crore dropped calls.
“To ensure the best digital and voice services, we purchased 10.6 megahertz (MHz) spectrum back in 2018. We have recently signed the agreement with Summit and our field-level work has already started. Besides, we are also working on doing similar agreements with other tower companies to build up capacity for our rollout ambitions,” Rahman added.
At present, the market leader Grameenphone has 37 MHz spectrum, Robi 36.4MHz, Banglalink 30.6MHz and Teletalk 25.2MHz spread across three different bands -- 900, 1,800 and 2,100.
Grameenphone and Teletalk could not be reached for comment.
