Grameenphone Chief Executive Officer Vivek Sood said that "Grameenphone plans to contribute more to the health, agriculture and education sectors with the help of the 3G technology. For that we need support from the ministries concerned.
The mobile operator received 10 megahertz of spectrum in an auction on September 8 to roll out high-speed data services through 3G technology.
Recently the CEO sat with The Daily Star to share their data services plans and ambitions.
He said 3G is not a tool for entertainment only; it is about connecting institutions and making business process more efficient. Different services such as online banking, e-commerce and e-business will be possible to deliver through high-speed internet, Broadband internet will help accelerate the country’s economic growth significantly,
Grameenphone will provide internet in three ways — 2G, 3G and Wimax, simultaneously.” GP has already partnered with a Wimax operator. The Wimax partner will develop their own infrastructure. They will have access to our subscribers. Grameenphone will launch the 3G services in the capital next month with an aim to cover the entire country by March next year.
The operator has a target to add around 25 lakh to 30 lakh 3G subscribers by the next one and a half years, while it has 22 lakh internet users now.
The International Finance Corporation has recently arranged $345 million for GP to help the operator bear its expenses on spectrum and capital machinery.
About the prices of the 3G services, the CEO said the prices would be competitive and will not be much higher compared to the 2G services.
“It will basically depend on the speed the subscribers want to experience. It will be competitive and will not be a concern for the consumers.”
The telecom regulator has allowed the mobile operators to launch 4G or long-term evolution (LTE) services through the 3G spectrum of 2,100 megahertz band.
However, Grameenphone has no immediate plan to launch 4G services. Because LTE handsets are still very few and expensive. Our concentration is on providing high-speed data services through the 3G technology. But once the LTE handsets are widely available and the government allows operators to offload LTE in the 1,800MHz spectrum band, they will definitely go for 4G. Internationally, the 1,800MHz band is mostly used for the LTE technology.
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