Telcos fined Tk 6cr

The telecom regulator yesterday fined six mobile phone operators more than Tk 6.29 crore for selling unregistered SIM cards.
Airtel Bangladesh will have to pay the biggest fine -- Tk 2.55 crore -- followed by Banglalink, Grameenphone, Robi, state-run Teletalk and Citycell within a month.
Law enforcement agencies seized at least 15,254 unregistered SIM (subscriber identity module) cards of the six operators over the last few months. Those SIM cards had been used for illegal call termination or Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).
Zia Ahmed, chairman of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), justified fining the operators, saying an unregistered SIM can be misused because its user cannot be tracked easily.
The BTRC wrote to the operators saying they had sold unregistered SIM cards despite the regulator's repeated warnings.
BTRC officials said mobile phone operators must follow the regulator's guidelines for selling SIM and RUIM (removable user identity module used by Citycell) cards for the sake of national security and checking crimes.
The regulator yesterday fined Banglalink Tk 1.59 crore, Grameenphone Tk1.07 crore, Robi Tk 53.99 lakh, Teletalk 46.36 lakh and Citycell 6.55 lakh.
The BTRC recently announced that if mobile phone operators were found selling SIM or RUIM cards without proper registration, they would be fined $50 for each SIM or RUIM card from October 12.
In order to buy a SIM card, a customer must fill in a form and provide photographs along with a photocopy of identity card. But many operators are not following the guidelines, said a BTRC official.
The BTRC chairman said the regulator had fined mobile phone operators more than Tk 800 crore during the last caretaker government's tenure for their involvement in illegal use of VoIP.
Mehboob Chowdhury, chief executive of Citycell and Chairman of Association of Mobile Operators of Bangladesh, said they would have to comply with whatever the regulator's directive was.
He declined to comment further on the matter.
A Grameenphone spokesperson said, “We have received a letter from the BTRC today [yesterday]. However, we are not in a position to comment on this right now because we need to analyse the BTRC's claim.”
An official of a mobile phone operator said it was the distributors, not operators, that are responsible for the sale of SIM cards.
If retailers sell SIM cards without proper registration, why should the operators pay penalty for that, the official questioned.