Regulatory restrictions, including the Well-known Market Energy (SMP) space, which disallow transmission and network investments, have “clipped the wings” of Grameenphone, the main cell operator in the nation, acknowledged its fresh chief corporate affairs officer, Tanveer Mohammad.
“The constraints and micromanagement of regulations through the years, restricted our skill to skim and innovate, despite our proven commitment to be the very best partner of the nation’s digitalisation,” he acknowledged in a fresh interview with The Alternate Long-established.
Tanveer Mohammad joined GP in 1997 as a gadget engineer and ascended to the space of the manager technology officer before his key roles at Telenor Community, equivalent to head of the Asia Integration Team, and served as chief running officer of Telenor India, one in every of GP’s parent company’s trade models.
He came attend house to attract conclude fee of GP’s corporate and regulatory affairs a month ago.
“Throughout the last few weeks, I even have been lucky to behold firsthand the transformative vitality of connectivity and the giant attainable it holds for riding progress,” acknowledged Tanveer.
Nonetheless, Grameenphone, a pioneer in Bangladesh’s up to date telecommunications, has been confronting some main regulatory hurdles during the last one and half a protracted time and Tanveer Mohammad shared his views on these.
“Bangladesh is perchance the supreme nation in the sphere that forbids the cell trade to deploy transmission infrastructure. But the authorities effect carrier requirements and aspire to inaugurate developed services and products fancy 5G,” he acknowledged.
Since 2008, cell network operators (MNOs) have gradually misplaced their licensing rights for fibre network and tower building, which he believes, created an unpredictability that can have an affect on investors’ self belief and deter future investments.
Cell operators’ transmission rights have been revoked thru the introduction of Nationwide Telecommunications Transmission Community (NTTN) licences in 2008-09, cyber web carrier provider (ISP) licence rights for mounted broadband connections have been revoked in 2009-11 and tower building rights have been revoked thru the separate piquant tower-company licences in 2018.
Now, the fragmented telecom fee chain in Bangladesh involves extra than one players, fancy NTTN operators, interconnection change (IE), world cyber web gateway (IIG), world gateways, exclaim material suppliers and tower-sharing companies.
Every requirement for diverse licences ends in high running fees and increased complexities in operations, hindering the transport of cheap quality services and products and inflicting buyer dissatisfaction, he acknowledged.
There are additionally no appropriate and uniform key performance indicators and parameters to measure the usual of carrier all around the fee chain.
Cell operators count on varied fee chain companions, and despite their major investment skill, companies fancy GP are no longer popular to procure a superior, just ecosystem.
GP already investing almost Tk52,800 crore in the nation, contributed a cumulative sum of Tk1,24,000 crore to the nationwide exchequer till June this year. Around 73% of the GP earnings in 2022-23 change into as soon as the authorities’s takeaway.
Tanveer believes cell operators desires to be allowed to make investments in fibre, towers, and heaps of vital areas of the telecom fee chain alongside the investments made by devoted licence holders.
“Such restrictions made attracting investments worthy in Bangladesh which capability of the unpredictable laws and regulations,” he acknowledged.
GP change into as soon as designated as a Well-known Market Energy (SMP) in 2019 which capability of its roughly 46% buyer market share at the time, which change into as soon as adopted by heaps of regulatory restrictions on expanding its trade.
“The motive of introducing SMP regulation is to make certain market competitors, no longer to impose boundaries to the expansion of any market participant. There change into as soon as no proof suggesting that Grameenphone has misused its dominant space to have an affect on competitors,” he acknowledged.
“No longer just like the general allegation in heaps of locations that the market chief hurts opponents by aggressive label cuts, GP barely satisfies its potentialities with superior services and products and thus potentialities decide for GP. This loyalty speaks volumes about the superior products, services and products, and experiences GP delivers, which stand out in a aggressive panorama,” he acknowledged.”
“For the time being, we explore severe competitors amongst the cell operators, and we welcome that because it benefits potentialities. Nonetheless, the original interpretations of SMP appear to have inadvertently hampered GP’s ability to innovate for better buyer abilities and answer to market demands for enhanced services and products,” acknowledged Tanveer.
He acknowledged, “Globally, there may perhaps be no such thing as a precedent for connecting SMP space to spectrum allocation. GP during its spectrum acquisition circulate at the low bands of 850 MHz, a really worthy for bettering indoor coverage, is listening to about its SMP space, sadly.”
He additionally praised several optimistic steps taken by the Bangladesh Telecom Regulatory Price, including the unified licensing gadget for cell operators and the regulatory officers’ affected person scheme to listening to the factors confronted by licensees.
“We are optimistic for simplification and modernisation of telecom regulations that can power efficient competitors, innovation and market development,” the GP first price added.
