‘Telecom operators will be forced to compensate call drops’

The country's mobile phone operators will be forced to compensate their users for call drops, State Minister for Telecommunication Tarana Halim said today.

All the operators will have to compensate for call drops and network failures, Tarana told a press conference at her secretariat office.

"We have made a decision and the ICT advisor of the prime minister has also directed us to introduce compensation for call drops," said Tarana.

"We will write to the telecom regulators within a short time and they will finalise the directive and monitor the market situation."

In third week of October, Tarana gave two months time to the mobile phone operators to improve their service quality and bring call drops to a minimum.

At that meeting, she also directed all six operators to compensate their subscribers for call drops and the poor quality network.

In today's press briefing, Tarana said they will emphasise on improving quality of service.

"This year we want to ensure secured, developed and uninterrupted service. At the same time we want to flourish it."

Tarana also mentioned that the biometric finger print project for mobile SIM card's information verification and new SIM card selling has been introduced successfully and this project has the potential to ensure security in the country.

"By April the process will be completed and then we can go for other modern services," Tarana added.

The government is on planning to introduce handsets registration process and by March it will also go for mobile number portability, said Tarana.

Tarana also said the government will sit with Facebook, Google and Microsoft authorities on January 12 at Singapore for ensuring security to user level.

"Facebook has requested for a focal point which we have already provided. Now, we will sit with them with the latest updates to convince them to set up an admin panel in Bangladesh," she said.

The state minister also shared their plan to improve the service quality of the state owned mobile phone operator Teletalk and make it a profitable venture.

Note: Earlier, The Daily Star Online published a report that quoted State Minister for Telecommunication Tarana Halim as saying: "4G will be introduced by this year." However, the minister later clarified that the announcement was a mistake. She clarified to The Daily Star that the government will give auction for the unsold spectrum of 2G and 3G services.