Edotco to boost telecom coverage in Gulshan
Edotco Bangladesh plans to set up modern towers camouflaged in electric lampposts on Gulshan Avenue to improve the quality of telecom services.
The tower management firm has applied to Dhaka North City Corporation seeking permission to install 16 towers which will help enhance the network coverage in the area, said Mohammad Manzoorul Islam, director for operations at Edotco Bangladesh.
“We have designed some of our towers to be installed in the areas from Shooting Club at Gulshan-1 to the Pakistan Embassy at Gulshan-2.”
Telecom users on Gulshan Avenue are facing weak network coverage as the area gets crowded especially during office hours. “Once the towers are installed, customers will get better data and voice services,” said Islam.
The tower management company has already set up carbon-fibre tower and a camouflage tower in the city as part of the company's pursuit of establishing innovative telecom infrastructure in the region.
Edotco installed its first carbon-fibre tower in front of Mirpur Bangla College and a camouflage tower on the premises of Kurmitola General Hospital.
Edotco, a unit of Malaysia's Axiatia, said the innovation is a great solution to the overcoming constraints of buildings in Bangladesh. The towers weigh about 160kg, 70 percent less than the conventional structure made up of steel. It will also reduce the foundation requirements by half, which are needed to provide higher strength to the weight ratio.
Edotco is investing in high quality infrastructure and encouraging tower sharing, where the tenancy ratio has improved to 1:3 now. The structure has high rigidity with a tensile strength 10 times more than steel, allowing it to better withstand harsher forces of nature.
Installation will also be completed 40 percent to 50 percent faster than the previous one. The cost for the mobile phone operators will go down by 20 percent for using the tower service.
Currently, Edotco has about 9,200 sites across the country and all of the sites are used by Robi that owns 20 percent of Edotco Bangladesh. Edotco also shares another 2,500 sites with three other mobile phone operators – Grameenphone, Banglalink and Teletalk, said Md Shariful Islam, a manager of the tower company.
Edotco has also installed wind turbine towers and solar towers in the country and is planning to introduce towers made up of bamboo and wood. The company, the lone tower management company in Bangladesh, is going to install a site made up of bamboo in the capital's Uttara, said another official of the company.
In 2012, Edotco was established as the first regional and integrated telecom infrastructure company in Asia, providing end-to-end solutions in tower services.
It started its operation to full in Bangladesh in June 2015. The government is now considering awarding two more tower company licences through an open auction.