State-owned BTCL has hit the doldrums, unable to provide new land phone connections in most metropolitan areas including Dhaka, but still has lofty plans.
There are ten private sector operators providing land phone services across the country apart from BTCL. Together, the state-run and private companies provide just 1,571,748 land phone connections across a country with a population of over 150 million.
Despite this, BTCL eyes an ambitious target to create 10 million new land phone connections by 2015 to provide telecom services "to the masses".
Many are sceptical. Industry insiders say, since transforming itself into a company, BTCL (formerly Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board) has failed to significantly improve commercial operations.
They say it has fallen short in meeting demand for connections in many areas—though not all—for lack of initiative among officials and staff.
Lack of capacity of the present exchanges in Dhaka, Chittagong and other divisional cities, along with 'cable crisis', are obstructing the company's growth, admits BTCL managing director SM Khabiruzzaman.
But, he told bdnews24.com, in spite of such constraints BTCL has been able to enlist one lakh (100,000) new subscribers in the last four months.
Several short and long term projects have been taken up to increase the number of land phone subscribers, said Khabiruzzaman, aiming to fulfil the 'one crore' target.
New connections across the country will be provided through optical fibre lines, of which thousands can be packed in to just one cable, he said.
Data exchange, TV and other value added services would also be provided through the new cable network, he said.
Though it is believed that people are losing interest in BTCL-operated land phones, due to the stunning growth of mobile phone and private cable services, the real picture is quite different, say BTCL officials.
While the company may be losing subscribers for failing to provide new connections in more densely populated areas, including Dhaka and Chittagong, it has been able to attract subscribers in other parts of the country, they say.
After BTCL began its transformation into a company, under the past caretaker government, new subscribers were lured by aggressive marketing, free connections and reduced call rates and line rent.
Khabiruzzaman also says many old subscribers have come back to the BTCL network and the rate of permanent disconnections has reduced significantly.
The authorities are also considering easing the strictness of the disconnection policy for unpaid bills, by giving three months notice for clearing dues.
Company officials also say BTCL could attract subscribers for the 400,000 connections currently lying vacant or unused if new marketing policy can be vigorously pursued.
At present, there are 941,000 BTCL subscribers across the country against the 1,311,000-line capacity of the state-owned company.
July saw some 29,700 new subscriptions immediately after the company started offering free connections outside the multi-exchange areas of metropolitan Dhaka and Chittagong. In June, there had been only 8,700 new subscribers.
August saw 28,400, September around 26,000 and October over 20,000 new subscriptions outside Dhaka and Chittagong cities.
Most of the new connections since July were provided in the Khulna region, totalling 29,500. BTCL also gave 13,400 connections in Chittagong and 12,000 in Rangpur divisions.
Meanwhile, some 25,000 applicants were waiting for new connections in the first week of November.
The process of providing 171,000 new connections in Dhaka city under a BTCL self-funded Tk 197 crore project was also underway, said officials.
At the same time, installing a million new land phone connections across the country, at a cost of Tk 1,200 crore, has started, said Khabiruzzaman.
He said BTCL is also about to embark on the massive 'one crore' project with the help of a $189 million soft loan from the Chinese government.
All the formalities have been completed from both sides and work on the project is expected to start soon with floating the tenders, said Khabiruzzaman.
"The plan is for one crore new land phone connections across the country by the year 2015, keeping up with the government's vision for a 'Digital Bangladesh'," said the upbeat MD.
Source: bdnews24.com
