Welcome to Business Outlook
Related Articles
The government has backtracked on its decision to block illegal mobile handsets from getting connections to the telecommunication network after introducing a National Equipment Identity Register for the purpose.
The telecommunication ministry has recently asked the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission not to take any action against illegal handsets and implement the instruction immediately.
The ministry’s decision came at a time when the commission issued a final notice in connection with disconnecting unregistered handsets.
Earlier in September, the BTRC decided that illegal mobile handsets seeking connections to the telecommunication network would be blocked from the network from October 1.
About the government’s decision not to block any handset from accessing the mobile phone network, BTRC vice-chairman Subrata Roy Maitra told New Age, ‘Not all people have the capacity to register their handsets and it is really a problem for many.’
‘Because of these, the decision to prevent illegal mobile phones from getting connections to the network has been changed,’ he said.
Asked what would be the use of the NEIR after the government’s decision not to bar any illegal handset from accessing the mobile network, Subrata said, ‘The commission would continue collecting data on illegal handsets so that law enforcing agencies or tax authorities can utilise the data, if required.’
‘Though actions would not be taken to bar illegal handsets from accessing the network, such handsets would be riskier and would be difficult for the law enforcing agencies to detect if the handsets remain out of the database,’ he said.
Following the decision, all handsets will be automatically registered with the National Equipment Identity Register of the BTRC.
As per the previous BTRC decision, all illegally-imported and illegally-manufactured handsets were supposed to be blocked from the network.
The BTRC had said that the illegal handsets which were connected to the network by September 30 would not be blocked.
Out of 1,08,37,359 active handsets, 76,91,246 are legal and 31,46,113 are illegal handsets, according to the BTRC data until September 30.
The BTRC had also urged handset importers and manufacturers not to produce or sell illegal mobile phones.
On July 1 last year, the BTRC launched the National Equipment Identity Register on a trial basis to prevent the use of illegal handsets.
The NEIR has the capacity to verify legality of handsets based on imported and locally manufactured ones’ information known as IMEI database.
In January 2021, the commission at a press briefing informed that 7.19 crore handsets had already been registered with the BTRC’s IMEI database and the database has around 14 crore IMEI numbers.
The handsets received as gift or purchased from abroad would be connected automatically with the mobile phone network and the users of such handset will have to register the handset with the NEIR web portal – neir.btrc.gov.bd – to make such handset a legal one. Otherwise, such handsets would be considered as illegal.
The number of mobile phone connections was 17.7 crore in July.
(NA)
