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The Financial Express

BTRC to declare Edotco as SMP soon

| Updated: December 20, 2021 15:40:23


BTRC to declare Edotco as SMP soon

The Bangladesh Teleco-mmunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) is going to declare mobile tower company Edotco Bangladesh as a significant market power (SMP) soon.

To this end, the telecoms regulator sent a set of recommendations to post and telecommunications ministry to slap SMP regulations on Edotco.

The decision has been made in the recent BTRC meeting, according to a BTRC source.

According to the BTRC, Edotco has already had a 92-per cent share in the tower market, posing a threat to newer players in the tower-sharing sector.

"We're trying to create a level-playing field in the market. The SMP regulations will ensure that," a BTRC official told the FE.

The initiative has been made as part of the commission's move to implement the SMP Regulations-2018 in the sector in question.

As part of the BTRC move to execute the regulations in the mobile telecoms sector, it has already declared Grameenphone as an SMP.

For cellular operators, the BTRC has set the number of customers, acquired revenue and spectrum as a benchmark for determining an SMP operator.

The SMP regulations, framed to promote competition and prevent anti-competitive behaviour of any mobile operator, allow the BTRC to declare segment-specific SMP in the industry.

For telecoms carriers, the commission sets 20 areas on which an SMP operator may face restrictions in operating its services.

The BTRC has initially imposed sanctions on GP in four areas-MNP (mobile number portability), exclusivity, quality of service and market communications.

However, the SMP regulations on GP are yet to be implemented due to an unresolved court case.

The BTRC licensed four tower companies to operate for 15 years initially, with a possibility to extend this term incrementally by five years.

The tower operators are Edotco, AB HighTech Consortium, Summit Towers and Kirtonkhola Tower Bangladesh Ltd.

Of them, Edotco has a portfolio of an estimated 12,000 towers and it manages different sites in Bangladesh.

The company has more or less 11,000 towers of its own and 1,000 managed towers, primarily for wireless carrier Robi Axiata.

Summit Towers owns nearly 500 towers and AB HighTech 250, according to the industry statistics.

Kirtonkhola has now less than 100 towers.

As American Tower Corporation has recently paired up with Kirtonkhola, it is going to accelerate activities, company sources said.

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