The Bangladesh Mobile Phone Consumer Association on Tuesday said that one of the key barriers to receiving good mobile network services was the shortage of mobile network infrastructure in the country.
The association made the comment at a discussion titled 鈥楴ecessary steps to overcome tower shortages to upgrade mobile network鈥�.
It said that a shortage of towers was causing slow mobile network, call drops call mute and other mobile service disruptions.
Mohiuddin Ahmed, president of the association, said that at least 1,00,000 towers were needed to improve the services, taking tower sharing and network sharing into consideration.
鈥楬owever, only 45,547 towers were constructed in the country as of July, according to Bangladesh Telecommunication and Regulatory Commission data,鈥� he said.
鈥楾owers account for only 40 per cent of the total requirement, the remaining 60 per cent needs to be constructed. We observed that most of the tower companies have a huge deficit in investments,鈥� Mohiuddin said.
Mentioning a report published by the organisation on May 23, Mohiuddin said that telecommunication services in most of the areas in the country were running through quality-less base transceiver stations.
鈥楢s a result, users face mobile network service shut down during load-shedding, or even in a little rain in areas, including areas in Chittagong Hill Tracts, Teknaf and Ukhia areas of Cox鈥檚 Bazar,鈥� he said.
He said that the Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited鈥檚 tower batteries and uninterruptible power supply expired long ago.
As result, in rural areas where load shedding is high, people have to suffer greatly with mobile network services, he said.
鈥楢lso, microwaves used in the BTS are of low quality, and non-completion of fibre connectivity has also to be considered for the network disruptions,鈥� he said.
He also said that coordination between mobile operators, tower companies and vendor organisations was necessary to solve the shortage of towers and improve mobile network.
Mentioning that there was dispute between vendors and tower companies, he urged both parties to resolve them.
鈥業f the disputes continue for more time, mobile network services may face disaster in the future,鈥� he said at the discussion.
He made a few demands, including awareness raising campaign by the BTRC on the misconceptions about impacts of tower radiations to human body or the nature, and emphasised importance on tower and network sharing by the telecom operators of the country.
Mohiuddin added that the foreign ministry and the telecommunications ministry should work in collaboration to solve the tower constructing problem in border areas of the country.
Former Competition Commission director Khaled Abu Nasser, among others, was present in the programme.