Grameenphone, a joint venture of Telenor and Grameen Telecom of Dr Muhammad Yunus, is likely to face fine of maximum Tk3 billion if the mobile network operator fails to address the issue of persistent call drops, Bangladeshi telecom regulator said.

Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) issued a show-cause notice to GP after a meeting on Sunday for failing to prevent call drops on its network amid low bandwidth, sources confirmed to the Mirror Asia. The telecom regulator is supposed to fine GP up to Tk3 billion, if the operator fails to address the issue which has been criticised for hindering services over the years.

Regarding the issue, GP said they will respond to the regulatory action in due time. “We received the notice on Tuesday and will respond to the BTRC in due time,” Sharfuddin Ahmed Chowdhury, head of communications at GP, told the Mirror Asia.

Earlier, Telecommunications State Minister Zunaid Ahmed Palak said GP do not utilise their spectrum completely. “They (GP) don’t utilise the allocated spectrum. The operator now claims they require more   towers. However, they didn’t use the allocated spectrum on their existing towers. There’re some issues of technology and finance as per their commitment,” he told media after a programme in Dhaka on Wednesday.

The state minister claimed that the government is not willing to give any concession to the mobile operators on the call drop issue. “BTRC has started taking strong action in this regard,” he said.

The number of GP’s call drops increased to 58.26 million during July 2022-July 2023 from 53.81 million in July 2021-July 2022. The number of their call drops increased by 8.26% year on year, according to the BTRC report.