State owned mobile operator, Teletalk wants to be competitive by offering the lowest Internet rates.
With new investment, Teletalk is set to start 4 G service, offering fast Internet service at the lowest rate, informed post, tele-communication and information technology minister, Mustafa Jabbar.
There were two impediments to the expansion of Teletalk: investment and network, said the minister and added: “already four organisations have received tower sharing licence and once they start to work, network expansion will be possible.”
“Consequently, Tele-talk will not have to construct towers, which means large investment won’t be needed.”
The minister also said that after expansion of network, Teletalk will be able to buy bandwidth from Bangladesh Submarine Cable Limited.
Then we will offer the lowest Internet rate which no one in the world would be able to compete with, contended the minister.
Till 31 July, Teletalk has 37 lakh 96 thousand subscribers, which was 45 lakh 53 thousand till January 31st. A few days ago, Tele-talk floated twenty lakh SIM cards in the market for women, but before the SIMs were sold, the package was stopped, since with a rapid rise in usage, the operator faced huge pressure on its network.
This adversely affected the service and, consequently, Teletalk lost more than 7.5 lakh subscribers.
However, the minister believes that if reliable service at affordable rates is offered then subscribers will increase.
In the future, people will tilt towards Internet based calls instead of voice calls and that’s what we need to capitalize on, observed the minister.
“Teletalk can be revived through offering data at a low cost.”
GP, Robi and Banglalink started 4 G on 20 February except Tele-talk and that’s why they also lost many subscribers, say market specialists.
Teletalk introduced 3 G before all other operators on 14 October, 2012, while the others started it more than a year later in September 2013.
It’s found from a reliable source that Teletalk has adopted a plan to start 4 G in all district towns at a cost of Tk. 200 crore.
Teletalk also plans to take this service to union levels by 2019 and 2020.