Call rates of the country’s leading mobile operator may be hiked due to the Significant Market Power (SMP) restrictions.
The telecom regulator decided to hike up GP’s call rate during a meeting on Tuesday (Apr 30). They will later notify the mobile operating company of the decision.
“The call rate might go up 5 paisa,” Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) Chairman Md Jahurul Hoque told Bangla Tribune.
Under the new plan GP’s minimum call rate will be 50 paisa which is still 45 paisa.
GP is the largest mobile telecom operator in Bangladesh by subscription boasting around 72.3 million customers, which accounts for nearly half of the mobile phone users, according to the BTRC. Mobile phone users of the four companies total 156.9 million now.
Grameenphone leads the market with 45.8 percent of the total subscriber base. Robi accounts for 30 percent of the total users, Banglalink makes up 22 percent and state-run Teletalk has 2.5 percent.
Grameenphone is also ahead in terms of annual revenues. It earned 53 percent of the total market revenues in 2017, Robi 28 percent and Banglalink 18 percent.
Restrictions can be clamped on an operator once it accounts for 40 percent of the subscribers, annual revenues or allocated spectrum, according to the SMP regulations.