Broadband Service: GP fined Tk 30cr

The telecom regulator has slapped a Tk 30 crore fine on leading mobile phone operator Grameenphone for providing internet broadband service to clients breaching rules.

“Mobile phone operators cannot go into internet broadband service like ISPs. That is a violation of rules,” Shahjahan Mahmood, chairman of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), told The Daily Star yesterday.

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“We have imposed a Tk 30 crore penalty,” he said.

There was no official reaction from the GP to the fine.

The penalty is related to GP's GO Broadband initiative, a high-speed internet service offered by Agni Systems and ADN Telecom in partnership with GP.

The network solutions were provided to state-run Sonali Bank.

The introduction of the service in 2014 prompted the Internet Service Providers Association of Bangladesh (ISPAB) to lodge a complaint with the regulator that GO Broadband was providing fibre optic connections to some commercial banks.

After receiving the complaint, the BTRC sought clarification from the mobile phone carrier. But the telecom regulator was not satisfied with its reply.

Earlier, GP said it had installed a fibre optic infrastructure of about five lakh kilometres for 551 branches of Sonali Bank.

The regulator termed it “the largest illegal telecom network” in the country's history.

The mobile phone carrier earned Tk 5,000 a month from each branch, according to the three-year agreement which has a provision of extension. In total, GP has so far earned Tk 30 crore from the service. The BTRC is treating the income as illegal and would seek to realise the whole amount in fine. 

The GP signed an agreement with Sonali Bank in December 2014 to set up last-mile connectivity for the bank through a fibre optic network. But rules do not permit a mobile operator to deploy fibre optic cables.

BTRC officials said GP cannot be involved in internet business except for mobile internet. But the company has been doing the business keeping Agni Systems and ADN Telecom on the front.

Mobile operators are allowed to provide internet services only through mobile devices and modems.

As per rules, ISPs can offer connectivity to users like banks and other service providers, but for doing so they have to be connected via fibre optic cables of Nationwide Telecommunication Transmission Network (NTTN) operators.

But no ISPs or NTTN operators were involved in the agreement between GP and Sonali Bank.