BTRC holds public hearing on mobile operators service quality

Mobile users at a public hearing on Wednesday complained poor network, call drop, flushing out of data balance after expiry date and quality of the countrys overall mobile operators services.

Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) organised the hearing in the city to know the experiences and complaints on quality of mobile services directly from the clients of telecommunication operators.

State minister for posts, telecommunications and information technology Zunaid Ahmed Palak attended the hearing and said the government was going to formulate a new law combining the 2001 and 2010 telecommunication laws, eyeing to innovate the regulations.
BTRC chairman Mohiuddin presided over the public hearing. Subscribers shared their experiences at the hearing and mainly taaaalked about the quality of mobile services including network speed, internet speed, call drop, voice call and network coverage. Many complained about mobile network speed.

KM Nahiyan Hossain, living Dhanmondi area complained of poor network and call drops in his residence. He said whenever he filed a complaint to telecom operator, they said it is not their fault, local people are preventing them from setting up network towers.

BTRC chairman Md Mohiuddin Ahmed said base station or network towers were essential to providing good services. But this is a problem that locals prevent setting up towers, he said.

He said BTRC, keeping all issues in mind, is trying to solve this problem with tower sharing with others, rather than setting up towers for individual telecom operators. Also, the commission is publishing the radiation data on its web site regularly to create awareness, he said.

Users also complained that though BTRC auctioned 5G spectrum in 2022, mobile users have not got  service of 5G network yet, through 5G networks is available in almost all the neighboring countries. They said 5G spectrum remained unused.
 
Mohammad Moniruzzaman Jewel, BTRCs director general of spectrum division said the regulatory authorities were working according to guidelines about 5G rollout.

However, the commission believes improving the 4G network service is more important than 5G network. We have deployed all our force to achieve the target of properly basis to improve the 4G network, he said.

Participants in the hearing complained about various other issues, such as local influential persons controlling internet service and preventing other companies to business into areas. Mobile operators are profiting thousands of crores taka from the duration-bound packages, they alleged.

BTRC officials assured users that they would solve the issues on priority basis.