Bangladesh - spectrum sale

Bangladesh sells mobile spectrum for $204 mln

Bangladesh has sold mobile phone spectrum to three of the country's mobile phone operators for a total of 14 billion taka ($204 million) to help expand their network, the telecoms regulatory authority said.

The three companies -- Grameenphone, Egyptian Orascom Telecom's ORTE.CA Banglalink and Aktel, controlled by Telekom Malaysia -- bought 7.5, 5 and 5 megahertz frequency respectively, at the rate of 800 million taka per MHz, the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission said.

"These three operators, having more than 86 percent of the total market share, can ensure the highest level of efficiency and capacity to absorb the growing usage of their customer base," said a commission official.

Bangladesh has one of the world's fastest-growing cellular markets, with the number of users expected to grow to 70 million by 2011 from the current 45.4 million.

Grameenphone, majority owned by Norway's Telenor, leads the market with 20.84 million subscribers, followed by Banglalink with 10.17 million and Aktel with 8.14 million.

Other operators include Gulf-based Warid Telecom, CityCell, a joint venture between Pacific Bangladesh Telecom and Singapore Telecommunications, and state-owned Teletalk.