The lone mobile number portability (MNP) operator in the country Infozillion wants to pay only one-third of its agreed revenue earnings to the coffer amid slump in business buffeted by low turnout in service seekers.
Last month, Infozillion requested the telecom regulator for reducing its revenue sharing to 5% from the 15% it had agreed before launching the service above one year back.
The company argues that as it earned less than its projection, it will share its earning with the government at a reduced rate.
The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) officials said the matter was being analyzed.
MNP is a service where mobile phone users can switch their operators without changing their existing 11-digit numbers. Mobile phone users have to pay Tk57 charge for availing the service.
Infozillion was awarded the licence in December 2017 with a fee of Tk11.6 crore. The operator launched the MNP service in October last year.
“Revenue sharing provision was waved for Infozillion for the first year as the service was new in the country. The company is now liable to share a 15% of its revenue after the initial year. The waiver deadline ended in October,” a BTRC official said.
He said as only one company was awarded licence for the entire MNP service, the revenue sharing of 15% was justified.
“Infozillion is enjoying monopoly in business but the company last month applied for reducing their revenue sharing to 5%. It claimed the business was not going as per their projection,” he said.
According to BTRC data, as of September 6.90 lakh mobile phone users took the MNP services and Infozillion made Tk9.10 crore in first 11-month of the operation.
“We projected that every month we would get around one lakh new customers but in reality the number is half of the estimation. Considering the existing dull business situation, we requested for reducing the revenue sharing,” Infozillion Chief Executive Officer Mohammad Zulfikar said.
“We want to sustain and users continue enjoying the service. And a revised lower revenue sharing formula would help us to sustain,” he added.
He also said mobile phone operators and other telecom service operator share their revenue earnings with the government at 5% rate.
As of September, Robi received 4.96 lakh mobile users through MNP service while 1.69 lakh customers left Robi’s network.
Grameenphone, the largest mobile carrier of the market, holds the second position, receiving 1.26 lakh customers and losing 2.74 lakh.
The third player Banglalink received 68,528 customers from others networks while 2.89 lakh users left the operator.
State owned Teletalk is in the last position on both counts. They got 4,427 customers from others and lost 8,101 from October last year to September this year.