Govt's Success Stories: Operators shift stance, sending out free SMS

Mobile phone operators have started disseminating free short messages on the government's development activities and success stories, changing their previous stance on the matter.

The operators agreed to send out the messages after a week-long discussion with the government, following which the message contents were changed to apolitical ones.

“We have sent them [mobile operators] a new set of texts and they are now disseminating [those] to their customers,” said MD Jahirul Haque, acting chairman of BTRC.

The operators are bound to follow the telecom regulator's order and at the same time they have a responsibility to share the government's success, said Haque.

Along with the first 10 messages, 50 others have also been prepared, with operators adamant that these too would be circulated only if the nature of the contents was the same.

The messages -- written in Bangla -- are now being sent as “government information”. For instance, the first of the messages reads: “Digital centers have been setup in 5,280 unions in order to ensure information services across the country.”

In other texts, the government highlights establishing the One-Stop Crisis Centre, the autism center and shelters for homeless peoples, said senior officials of the telecom division.

Now, every morning BTRC shares a message -- chosen by the telecom ministry -- with the operators who then spread those to their customers. Already four such short messages have been disseminated.

Through these, the government is trying to spread their success stories to the citizens without any cost or effort, officials of the regulator said.

Additionally, some operators have expressed their unhappiness with the arrangement, especially because of the huge cost involved.

“Sending an SMS to all the customers costs about Tk 2.50 crore and we fear the number of these texts will increase in the coming days,” said a senior executive of a private mobile operators.

He said operators usually charged between Tk 0.17 to Tk 0.20 for sending bulk SMS to subscribers.

“Sending such a huge [number of] SMSs creates a tailback in our network and the customers also suffer [availing] their regular services,” said the executive, requesting not to be named.

He added that maybe the time had come for the operators to jointly protest the government's move as every year they have to disseminate hundreds of messages, which increases their cost of doing business.

Earlier on September 29, Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BRTC) asked all four mobile operators to send their subscribers 10 short messages with slogans on development and success stories of the government.

Only the state-owned Teletalk, with 39 lakh active connections, carried out the order while Grameenphone, Robi and Banglalink said they would not circulate those messages to their 15.15 crore customers.

All three private mobile operators refused to comply with the BRTC order, terming the messages highly “political”.

This led the government to seek a legal opinion on the matter from the regulator. However, a compromise was soon reached.

According to the Telecommunication Act, mobile operators are bound to send free SMS on “national emergency or security matters”.