"We have a plan to launch the service as early as possible to meet the huge unmet demand for fixed line telephones," Group Managing Director Sayem Sobhan Anvir said in an interview with The Daily Star.

Anvir said his company will raise the fund from internal sources and is trying to manage a syndicated bank loan for the project.

Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), the telecom watchdog, recently handed over the first PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) licence to the BCNL as it qualifies the criteria.

Bashundhara Group obtained licence for operating in four out of five zones. The BCNL has targeted to provide 3,000,000 fixed phone lines at a signup cost of Tk 7,500. Its per minute call charge within zone will be Tk 0.50.

However, the tariff rate will require approval from the BTRC.

The BCNL will use CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) 2000 1X technology in its network. The technology is quickly deployable and capable of speedier data transfer.

The company will be able to provide connection within a day, Anvir said. "We'll add one million phones each year in the three-year project starting from May 2005."

The BCNL is now looking for a telecoms equipment vendor and the company has short-listed US-based Lucent Technologies Inc., Motorola Inc, Canada's Nortel Networks and Swedish Ericsson as potential equipment suppliers.

The BTRC has divided the country into five zones -- Dhaka multi-exchange area (city), Sylhet, Chittagong-Comilla, Barisal-Khulna and Rajshahi-Rangpur for private-sector landline telephone service.

The central zone has been kept off-limits to the current licensing process due to a pending dispute with UK-based WorldTel, which had obtained a licence in July 2001 to run fixed phone lines in Dhaka.

"We are optimistic about getting licence for the central zone also as soon as the BTRC brings it under the licensing regime," Anvir said.

Bashundhara Group is one of the biggest conglomerates of the country. Its annual turnover is about $320 million from a range of business including industrial manufacturing, trading and real estate.

State-owned Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) currently provides 750,000 fixed phones across the country. On the other hand, four cellphone operators have a total of 2.25 million subscribers.

Bangladesh's teledensity is still the lowest in South Asia, according to the statistics of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Only 1.56 per 100 people have access to telecoms facility -- the 2003 data of ITU shows.