Regulator invites bid to monitor telecom services
The telecom regulator has called an international tender to establish a separate centre to monitor the country's overall telecom services round the clock, especially the quality of mobile networks and voice and data traffic.
Officials of the Bangladesh Tele-communication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) said the centre would help improve digital services in the country.
The monitoring includes call detail records, something only an intelligence agency of the country can currently carry out.
It will also help the regulator check whether operators' integration of revenue reporting process and automated audit system were in line with BTRC regulations.
The BTRC yesterday uploaded the tender notice on its website and would be publishing it in newspapers. Any local and international IT company can submit their offer.
The tender calls for development, deployment, acquisition and installation of required software and hardware to implement the proposed system.
The winning firm will run the operations of the system for one year and the maintenance for two years.
Earlier, the telecom regulator allotted Tk 15 crore to establish the centre, said Md Jahurul Haque, acting chairman of the BTRC.
He said its impact would be huge and every telecom service user would be benefited.
Officials will be able to recommend punitive measures which the commission will consider before taking a final decision, he said.
“Ensuring quality of service through this kind of initiative will be helpful and at the same time this process will ensure transparency of the total service system,” said Haque.
He said the telecom regulator's main priority was to ensure customer satisfaction. So, it decided to build a centre soon where a laboratory for monitoring service quality would be set up.
All the service providers, including mobile operators, WiMAX and internet service providers will have to be connected to the monitoring centre.
It will have two parts: the main part will be called monitoring and data management system and the other will be called complaints monitoring and system.
A top official of the BTRC said currently there was no way to check operators' services and network and they had no concrete information about mobile operators' packages.
In a newly introduced regulation, the BTRC has declared a minimum 7 Mbps internet speed for fourth generation (4G) service, maximum call drop rate of 2 percent while call setup success rate of over 97 percent in its regulation parameter.
Maintaining 160 kilobytes per second for 2G service and 2Mbps for 3G service will be a must for the operators in case of test drives, with upload speeds of 40Kbps for 2G and 128Kbps for 3G services, according to the regulation.
“All these parameters will be strictly followed by the monitoring centre,” the official added.
Earlier the BTRC held a public hearing on complaints from subscribers on the quality of services. Customers put emphasis on enhancing the regulator's monitoring.
Now customers can file complaints but proving the claim and coming to a final decision is a lengthy procedure.