Prime Minister's ICT Affairs Adviser Sajeeb Wazed Joy yesterday instructed the telecom regulator to arrange the spectrum auction within a month or two with a view to expediting the roll-out of 4G services and improving the mobile operators' service quality.

“We are very much concerned about the mobile operators' service quality. That's why we want to allocate more spectrum to the operators,” said Tarana Halim, state minister for telecom, after a meeting with Joy on the progress of the country's digitisation process.

To allocate more spectrum, the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission will seize different operators' unused spectrum and put them up for auction, she said.

The ICT adviser directed the BTRC to confiscate spectrum of Citycell, which has been out of service for more than six months now, and place it in the auction to help the existing mobile operators to improve their service quality, said a senior official who attended the meeting.

Joy also directed the BTRC to go for spectrum neutrality, which will help the operators to utilise spectrum in an efficient manner.

A charge of $5 million for spectrum neutrality was also discussed at the meeting but no final decision was taken, the official said.Tarana said every time the mobile operators are quizzed about their poor service quality they blame it on spectrum scarcity.

“Now we will give them scope to buy spectrum. After this we will be tough on them.”

To proceed with the auction, the BTRC will now have to pass on a draft guideline to the telecom division.

“We have a plan to finalise the guideline within this fiscal year,” Tarana said.

The BTRC has also sent its proposed guideline on 4G services, where it included an option to award a new licence.

Joy also asked the telecom regulator to take initiative to invite global telecom giants to invest in Bangladesh.

The BTRC proposed 15 percent revenue sharing for 4G service and $25 million as the floor price for each megahertz of spectrum in the auction.

“Price will not be an issue. We will fix it,” Tarana said.

The issues of call drop and compensation were also discussed at the meeting.

Before arranging the spectrum auction, all the operators will have to compensate their subscribers for call drops and inform them through text message. The ICT adviser also asked the telecom division to increase nationwide internet service providers' licence fees to Tk 25 lakh from Tk 10 lakh. Shyam Sunder Sikder, secretary of the telecom division, and Shahjahan Mahmood, BTRC chairman, were also present at the meeting.