RanksTel stages a comeback

From left, Zakia Rouf Chowdhury, director of RanksTel; A Rouf Chowdhury, president and chief executive officer; Rumee A Hossain, director; and AKM Shamsuddin, chief operating officer, attend the relaunch of the land-phone operator at Thai Chi restaurant in Dhaka yesterday.Photo: STAR

Leading private land-phone operator RanksTel yesterday relaunched its operations after a lull of more than two years.
The operator initially opened its network for Dhaka and Chittagong regions and will do the same in Sylhet, Khulna and Bogra in phases.
RanksTel also offered various packages to mark the relaunch.
The company has already completed registration of 20,000 old customers, and the work for registering the rest is going on, said officials.
The operator had around three lakh subscribers when it was shut by the telecom regulator in March 2010.
Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission cancelled the licence of the operator for allegedly running unauthorised voice over internet protocol operations.
Telecom Minister Rajiuddin Ahmed Raju yesterday announced the relaunch by making a call from his phone to a RanksTel number at a programme at Thai Chi Restaurant on Bijoy Sarani in Dhaka.
A Rouf Chowdhury, president and chief executive officer of the operator, said they plan to introduce next generation technology and a "triple-play service" that is voice, data and television through a single line.
Before the shutdown, the company also launched mobile phone services with limited mobility but the service could not flourish as the government closed the company.
“We don't know why the government suddenly closed the private land phone operator, instead of encouraging local entrepreneurship,” said Chowdhury.
Local companies are providing land phone services in the neighbouring countries such as India, Sri Lanka and Thailand, he said.
RanksTel, a concern of business conglomerate Rangs Group, has so far invested more than Tk 400 crore for building its network, according to the operator's website.
AKM Shamsuddin, chief operating officer of the company, said the operator has been facing a serious problem with interconnection charges with mobile phone operators as most of their calls go to the mobile operators.
The interconnectivity charge is now Tk 0.22 per minute, while it was Tk 0.90 earlier. The charge should not be higher than one third of the minimum call charge, he said.
However, as a separate tariff plan has been declared by the government for the land phone operators, they have got an opportunity to offer comparatively lower call charges.
All the Rangs Toshiba showrooms will be used as the customer care centres of RanksTel, said Rumee A Hossain, a director of the operator.
Three new packages -- Kotha (talk), Nikhut (precise) and Astha (trust) -- were unveiled for the customers yesterday. Zakia Rouf Chowdhury, another director of the company, also spoke at the programme.
RanksTel was founded in 2005 with CDMA (code division multiple access) wireless technology.