DHAKA, Oct 31, 2018 (BSS) – Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) is set to hand over licenses to four firms to operate tower sharing companies in the country’s telecommunication sector.
The telecom regulator has picked up the four firms, out of eight applicants, as those fulfilled the criteria required for mobile network tower sharing company license, said officials.
BTRC Senior Assistant Director Zakir Hossain told BSS today that Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology Minister Mustafa Jabbar is scheduled to hand over the licenses tomorrow to the selected firms at a ceremony at BTRC.
He said the firms – edotco Bangladesh Tower Company Limited, TASC Summit Tower, Kirtankhola Tower Bangladesh Limited and AB HiTech Consortium Limited – are being given the licenses.
Officials said, earlier on August 16 this year, the telecom regulator issued “notification of award (NoA)” for the licenses to the four firms.
Before the NoA, BTRC in a special commission meeting had finalized the name of the four firms following the evaluation under “beauty contest” manner and forwarded those to the posts and telecommunications division (PTD) for the final approval.
The officials said the decision was finalized based on a report of the 15-member evaluation committee which scrutinized the applications as per the tower sharing licensing guidelines. Currently, there are 30,000 towers in the country. The telecom regulator received eight applications for the licenses, within the extended deadline of June 11 this year.
As per the guidelines, license acquisition fee has been set at Taka 25 crore while annual renewal fee Taka 5 crore. Besides, the licensees will have to share 5.5 per cent of their revenue with the government and another 1 per cent with the social obligation fund from the second year of the licenses.
Each licensee will also have to deposit Taka 20 crore as performance bank guarantee and BTRC regulator would encash up to 50 percent of the performance bank guarantee phase by phase in case of licensee’s failure in complying with rollout obligations.
Initially, the license tenure would be 15 years which would extend gradually by five years.
Officials said edotco Bangladesh, an associate company of Axiata’s edotco group, attained the highest 91 marks. edotco Bangladesh is the lone entity out of the eight applicants that is already in operation in the tower sharing business in Bangladesh. Greencon Tower Company Limited is the local partner and edotco Group is the foreign partner of edotco Bangladesh Limited.
TASC Summit Towers Limited, got the second highest 88 marks from the evaluation committee. TASC Tower, a UK-based entity that was founded in 2017, and Global Holding Corporation Private Limited, the holding company of an Indian shared passive telecom infrastructure company GTL Infrastructure Ltd, are the foreign partners of TASC Summit Towers.
ISON Tower Bangladesh Private Limited, renamed as Kirtankhola Tower Bangladesh Limited, became the third with 85 marks. Confidence Tower Holdings Limited is the local partner of Kirtonkhola and ECP Tower Singapore Pte is the foreign partner of the entity.
Besides, AB HiTech Consortium became the fourth entity with 82 marks. AND Telecom Limited, AB Hightech International Limited, ZN Enterprise Limited, Synergy Logistic Limited and Orange Digital Limited are the local shareholders of AB HiTech.
China Communications Services International Limited and Changshu Fengfan Power Equipment Company Limited are the foreign partners of AB HiTech Consortium.