The advent of technology has reached such heights that people now want everything on the palm of their hands — on cell phones. As a result, mobile internet has become an integral part of everyday life.
However, consumers have recently been complaining about certain issues of the internet services they have been receiving and more often than not mobile operators write them off as ‘technical glitches.’
Monirul Basahar is a manager of a private company and uses Grameenphone’s 28-day internet package. He has faced problems with his mobile internet service on multiple occasions and it is yet to be solved.
He said that it had happened once that his package was renewed without any notice once within 15 days and once within 20 days of purchase.
He added that he wasn’t asked whether he wanted to renew the package or not and the very same day it was renewed, a message notification was sent to him saying that his data was finished and he was on pay per use mode.
A confused Bashar reached out to GP and was informed by the operator three days later that “there was a mistake in the system, sending customers wrong information.”
Many others like Bashar have faced the same situation and received the regular “it was a technical glitch” answer.
“Everyone is getting away by saying that it was a technical problem but the customers are having to pay the price,” Bashar told Bangla Tribune.
He said that although the operators are supposed to send message notification when 50 and 80 percent of the data pack has been used up, he was only notified of his pay per use status.
Not getting any solution from the customer care, users reach out to the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC).
The telecoms regulator is overflowing with complaints about internet speed, prices, network problems, data volume, data running out too soon despite low power mode usage and not streaming videos and money deducted from account without any prior notification amongst many other things.
“The users should contact the customer care of their mobile operator if they think that they are not getting the proper data volume that they paid for,” said BTRC Senior Assistant Director Zakir Hossain.
He added that if the operators fail to help then they should lodge a complaint with the commission by filling out a form and steps will be taken accordingly.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh Network Operators Group (BdNOG) Trustee Board Chairman Sumon Ahmed Sabir told Bangla Tribune that while technical glitches do happen, if they continue it might turn into a problem.
“If the problem continues you have to assume that there is some kind of bug in the operator’s system software. If those are not fixed, it might turn into an issue for the users,” he said.
“If the bug isn’t fixed even after identification then it’s clear that the technical glitches are indeed intentional,” he added.
Sabir said that these intentional glitches might be a “trick” on the operators’ part as they can gain heavily from it and might cost the customer a hefty amount of money.
“It’s the operators’ duty to inform the customers,” he said.
People familiar with the matter are of the view that data volume run out based on apps usage, 3G and 4G use, resolution of videos streamed and many other things. If users are careful about this, they may save up on data.
In 2017, BTRC received 3,522 complaints and most of them were against GP. There were 1,973 complaints against GP in one year, 612 against Banglalink, 608 against Robi, 221 against Airtel and 104 against Teletalk.
The regulatory commission show caused the concerned operators regarding the complaints and resolved the issue often through negotiation and ensuring that the operators compensated for the damage.
Telecommunication Minister Mostafa Jabbar said that in light of the complaints they have undertaken the task of building an infrastructure which includes guidelines and laws.
“The operators are unable to provide services due to the large number of users and weak network,” he said.
He added that the users can now resort to Mobile Number Portability (MNP) if they are not satisfied with the services of their existing operators.
“Not only internet, any allegation of neglect and irregularities in terms of voice calls will be probed and strict action will be taken against the operators,” Jabbar said.