Home ›› 15 Mar 2022 ›› Front
The mobile phone operators have submitted their 5G spectrum auction applications to the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC).
The auction is scheduled for March 31 and the BTRC would hold a meeting to review the applications on Tuesday (today), said the commission’s spectrum division Director General Mohammad Moniruzzaman Jewel.
“The commission will issue a guideline on 5G operations before the auction,” BTRC Vice-Chairman Subrata Roy Maitra told The Business Post on Monday.
The operators were asked to launch 5G services primarily within six months after the auction, he added.
The BTRC in a recent notification asked the mobile phone operators to apply by March 14 to take part in the bid.
The 60MHz spectrum from the 2.3MHz band will be auctioned in six blocks, and the 120MHz spectrum from the 2.6GHz band in 12.
The base price of per MHz frequency is $6 million for both bands. An operator has to pay Tk 10 crore in earnest payment and Tk 15 lakh in application processing fees. The floor price was set at $6 million per MHz.
According to the spectrum auction 2022 guidelines, the spectrum will be allocated after the payment of 10 per cent of the spectrum assignment fee, subject to fulfilling other terms and conditions.
The remaining 90 per cent will have to be paid in nine equal instalments within nine years from the date of spectrum allocation. The money has to be paid in US dollar or its equivalent in taka by converting at the Bangladesh Bank’s foreign currency selling rate on the auction date.
During the last auction in 2021, the guideline set the floor price at $30 million per MHz in the 1800MHz band and $27 million per MHz in the 2100MHz band.
The government this time expects to raise a minimum of Tk 9,180 crore from the 180MHz radio frequency allocations for mobile phone operators to power 5G services and beyond.
Last year, the government earned the highest, Tk 7,634 crore, by allocating 27.4MHz from the 1800MHz and 2100MHz bands.
In 2018, it earned around Tk 3,940 crore by selling 16.6MHz to Banglalink and Grameenphone.
The BTRC has already assigned 60MHz from the 3.5GHz band to the state-owned mobile operator Teletalk for launching 5G services.
