Within a few hours of the Supreme Court order the telecom regulator on Tuesday returned Citycell's spectrum and allowed the operator to use it for radio communication.

On Tuesday evening, the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission issued a letter signed by its director of spectrum, Sufi Mohammad Moinuddin, to Citycell and suspended the previous spectrum cancellation letter.

BTRC cancelled Citycell's frequency on June 11 following a notice on April 26.

On Monday evening, in a special commission meeting the BTRC had decided to cancel Citycell's licence over non-payment of fees and charges and planned to issue a public notice.

This came after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who also heads the posts, telecommunications and information technology ministry, last week gave the BTRC the green light to do so.

The Daily Star yesterday tried to contact Citycell's top management to learn about the operator's next course of action but none could be reached at the time of filing the report. However, a senior executive of the company requesting anonymity said Citycell cannot do anything with the frequency at present as they have no establishment and live network infrastructure.

The management though is working to sell off the company to a foreign party and restoration of Citycell's spectrum would help in negotiations, he added.

The BTRC had blocked Citycell's service on non-payment grounds in October last year, when the operator had 1.25 lakh active customers. The regulator lifted their bar later but the operator could not resume operations, insiders said.