No more line rent for BTCL connections

The government has decided to scrap line rent for subscribers of Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited (BTCL) from August 16 to make the services more people friendly, reports UNB.

Subscribers will enjoy unlimited BTCL to BTCL talk-time for a monthly cost of Tk 150, Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology Minister Mustafa Jabbar said. 

BTCL customers will have to pay Tk 0.52/minute for calling other operators, he said after a meeting at the secretariat on Wednesday.

Jabbar urged the authorities concerned to work with more devotion. “We’ll do everything to make the organisation more people-friendly,” he said, issuing directives to ensure that subscribers can enjoy services from home.

The minister said Bangladesh was one of the top five fastest-growing economies in the world. “5G technology will be introduced in the country between 2021 and 2023 to expedite development,” he said.

To reduce digital disparity among cities and villages, he emphasised making the existing broadband network suitable for 5G.

“We have to properly utilise the countrywide network of BTCL,” he said.

Ashoke Kumar Biswas, secretary of the Posts and Telecommunications Division, and BTCL Managing Director Engineer Iqbal Mahmud, some other senior officials attended the meeting.