Dhaka: One lakh 10 thousand new mobile handsets are being registered in the country every day, out of which about 10 % are found to be illegal and counterfeit, according to the telecom regulator BTRC.
According to the state telecom regulator, 11 thousand illegal and fake handsets are being identified every day. As soon as these handsets are connected to the network, the message is automatically sent to the customer that his set is ‘invalid or fake’.
Shyam Sundar Sikder, chairman of the Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC), said the commission was in a tough position to crack down on illegal and counterfeit handsets from October 1, even though customers were exempted from using them from July 1 to September.
BTRC chairman Shyam Sundar Sikder said the process of shutting down illegal sets would start from October 1. “There will be no flexibility from October 1, illegal and fake handsets will not be able to operate on the network from October 1,” he said.
On July 1, BTRC started NEIR activities to stop illegal and counterfeit handsets. In the process, the new handsets that will be added to the network from July 1, if any of them are invalid, it was announced to give the customer three months.
The BTRC had earlier said that the next steps would be taken as per the decision of the government by keeping the set operational for three months on an experimental basis.
