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The telecom regulator on Tuesday floated tender for purchasing equipment for setting up National Equipment Identity Register (NEIR), a system used to access mobile phones.
The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) asked interested firms to apply by March 31.
According to the tender, NEIR is a central system that will enable the authorities to maintain access control of mobile devices and check the device data.
It will also enable the regulator to control connectivity with the telecom network and block fake or cloned handsets.
The bidder must have minimum 7 years of overall experience and in case of joint venture the experience requirement is 5 years, the tender document reads.
The prime contractor must have experience in supply and installation of NEIR for other regulatory authorities or government organizations.
Companies participating in the tender must have track record of similar supply in the last five years worth minimum $5 million.
The required average annual turnover of the participants must be at least $1 million in the last three years.
Multiple firms having technical and legal competency for developing such a product can apply jointly but they shall have legal agreement among them where one firm needs to be the lead firm, it says.
The BTRC in a notice in July last year asked mobile phone users to check the authenticity of their mobile handsets before they purchased and warned that the Commission would disconnect the fake handsets once the NEIR would come into operation.
In the notice, the telecom regulator said if any mobile phone handset was found with clone or a wrong IMEI number, a unique number to mark a handset, it would be disconnected.
BTRC officials said the commission was hoping to run the NEIR by the end of this year.
(DT)