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Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) on Tuesday warned legal action against using illegal jammers, repeaters, boosters and cordless phones and requested their removal shortly.
As part of their primary initiatives, the regulatory body has also started sending text messages on mobile phones, in an effort to inform people about the external interferences that disrupt the network.
“We have started sending text messages on mobile phones, we will also disseminate the massage on television scrolls as part of publicity. Finally, legal actions will be taken if all these publicity fails to work” BTRC’s vice-chairman Subrata Roy Maitra told The Business Post.
“Initially, we are yet to fix any time limit to remove illegal jammers, repeaters, boosters and cordless phones but we are monitoring the matter closely”, he said.
BTRC came up with the initiative after getting a letter from The Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh (AMTOB) recently which alleged that illegal use of jammers, repeaters, boosters and cordless phones have been hampering service quality of country’s mobile phone operators.
In the letter, AMTOB Secretary General SM Farhad also urged the BTRC to take proper measure in this regard.
In recent time, questions were raised against the service quality of telecom operators repeatedly which prompted BTRC to auction additional spectrum on March 30.
“The commission may be aware that the MNOs have been immensely struggling due to external interferences created by illegal jammers, repeaters, boosters, cordless phones etc.” Farhad said in the letter.
“The negative impact of external interferences has increased even more in recent years, and it has become essential to restrict further expansion of these illegal repeaters, jammers and boosters, immediately,” he said.
At present, 1,500 to 1,700 cells of each operator are affected due to interferences throughout the country, the AMTOB letter stated.
‘We have sought support from the BTRC to remove these items from the marketplaces to restrict their further use,” AMTOB said, adding that, “We also sought appropriate actions and adequate public awareness against selling and using of these illegal devices.”
