Banglalink has sought permission from the telecom regulator to establish a subsidiary company for its network infrastructure such as towers, energy equipment and civil work.
The new company will become an independent passive infrastructure provider.
Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission received a no-objection certificate application from the country's third largest operator and is looking into the matter, a top official of BTRC said.
In its application, Banglalink said it is sharing some of its passive infrastructure such as towers, energy equipment and civil work as per the BTRC's guideline.
Given the BTRC's policy of encouraging infrastructure sharing, the operator now wants to establish the subsidiary, Banglalink Digital Communication Ltd, according to the application signed by Taimur Rahman, its chief corporate and regulatory affairs officer.
All of Banglalink's passive infrastructure will be transferred to the subsidiary, as well as the existing master agreements between Banglalink and any other licensee.
The lease agreement between Banglalink and relevant landlords for each tower will also be transferred to the new company.
The telecom regulator earlier allowed Robi to set up a similar subsidiary company, e.co, which has about 9,000 towers in its books.
Banglalink cited this move as an example in the letter but did not take Robi or e.co's name.
Currently, the government and the telecom regulator are working to separate the mobile service and the tower operation businesses.
They are planning to award two licences for tower operation, who then will serve all the mobile phone operators and other telecom service providers.
BTRC Chairman Shahajan Mahmood said they are serious about awarding the tower licences and the industry will see them this year.
“We have sent it to the government. They gave us some observations and we are now working on them.”
Mahmood said the move will bring fresh investments into the country.
Currently, there are about 30,000 towers engaged in mobile phone operations.
If the two tower companies can operate properly, then the total number of towers will come down -- a development that will save valuable land, power and other operational expenses.
Banglalink also plans to improve its capital structure and increase investment for modernisation of telecom services, according to the letter.
Banglalink has around 8,000 base tower stations and of them 6,000 are connected with 3G services.
Earlier, market leader Grameenphone created a subsidiary company, GP IT, and later sold its majority share to American company Accenture.
Source: http://www.thedailystar.net/business/banglalink-seeks-set-tower-company-1339669