Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) has decided to cancel ownership of Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards if the users do not use the SIM at a stretch two years.
The BTRC issued directives to the country's mobile phone operators in this regard.
The directives also includes that the mobile phone operators will refund their customers if their internet packages were not fully used during the given period.
The unused data will be included in next package, the directives added.
According to the BTRC's latest statistics till January 2015, a total of 12, 18, 60,000 people are currently using mobile phone SIMs across the country while 4, 27, 66,000 customers use internet.
The BTRC sent the approved regulations to mobile phone operators on Thursday. The directives, titled 'Directives on Services and Tariff 2015', were issued regarding various mobile phone services, offers, number plans, usage notification, tariff and charge, promotional activities, market communication and so on.
The BTRC also included mobile connections deactivation, reactivation, reselling related issues in the directives.
According to the regulations, if a SIM card holder does not use his or her SIM card at a stretch 90 days, the SIM will be deactivated.
If a customer does not use the SIM for 365 days, the customer will has to recharge minimum Tk 150 to activate the SIMs, the directives added.
Besides, a customer has to pay Tk 100 to reactivate her/his SIM if it remains closed for 730 days (two years).
The concerned mobile phone operators then will be allowed to resell the SIM cards to other customers if BTRC and others agencies do not have any objection regarding the particular SIM.
The operators have to inform the customers through advertisements at least in three national newspapers three months before the SIM cards' sale, the BTRC set the conditions for selling the unused SIMs. The SIM cards will be sold in ongoing market prices.
The BTRC has said the mobile phone operators will have to notify the data users on the basis of their amount of data usages. For example, 100 megabytes data users will be notified for once, 100-500 megabytes data users twice, and over 500 megabytes data users for three times.
First notification will be served when 50 percent of data will be used and second notification after 80 percent data use. Last notification will be served after the finishing of the data along with the instructions how the customers will recharge for further use.
New time-limits for various ranges of recharge bundles have been set up in the new regulations as well. A total of seven categories have been fixed as per recharge amounts in the directives.
For example, Tk 10-29 recharge bundles will remain valid for 10 days, 31-50 recharge bundles for 15 days, 51-150 recharge bundles for 30 days, 150-300 recharge bundles 45 days, 301-500 for 100 days, 501-999 for 180 days and over 1000 recharge bundles will remain valid for one year.
No companies will be allowed to publicise their products as the ‘best’.
TIM Nurul Kabir, secretary general of the Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh, told Prothom Alo that the BTRC decisions, taken after discussing with the country's mobile phone operators, are positive.
He also said BTRC accepted their various suggestions in this regards.
Mobile companies also saw the directives positively.
Syed Talat Kamal, Grameenphone's head of external communications, told Prothom Alo that Grameenphone has taken the new regulations positively.
Banglalink government relations and regulatory affairs senior director Taimur Rahman also echoed the comment.
Mobile operator Robi spokesperson Mohiuddin Babar also said the BTRC initiatives positive.