The country’s second largest mobile operator Robi bagged the highest number of subscribers from other operators through the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) service, according to Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC).
As of September, a total of 6.90 lakh mobile phone users successfully switched their operators without changing their existing 11 digits number through MNP service introduced a year ago, according to a report of the telecom regulator.
Another 2.57 lakh mobile phone customers failed in their attempts to avail the same service because of various complications, adds the BTRC report.
After launching the service in early October last year, Robi received 4.96 lakh mobile users who were earlier used to be other operators’ subscribers while 1.69 lakh customers left Robi’s network.
Grameenphone, the largest mobile carrier of the market, is in the second position, receiving 1.26 lakh customers and losing 2.74 lakh.
The third player Banglalink received 68,528 customers from others networks while 2.89 lakh users left the operator.
State owned Teletalk is in the last position in both segments. They got 4,427 customers from others and lost 8,101 from October last year to September this year.
Industry insiders said that the higher SIM replacement tax of Tk200 might have affected the expected outcome of the MNP service.
Mobile phone users, however, said the service quality after using MNP was not satisfactory yet.
Currently, the users are paying Tk 57 service charge for availing the MNP service and Tk 200 SIM replacement tax on top of that.
Source: https://dhakatribune.com/business/2019/10/14/robi-gets-highest-number-of-customers-via-mnp