Girish Mahajan (Editor)

Banglalink

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Type
  
Subsidiary

Key people
  
Erik Aas, CEO

CEO
  
Erik Aas (1 Dec 2015–)

Founded
  
1995

Industry
  
Telecommunication

Website
  
www.banglalink.com.bd

Headquarters
  
Dhaka, Bangladesh

Banglalink httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediaen666Ban

Area served
  
Bangladesh (Nationwide coverage)

Products
  
Telephony, GSM, 2G, GPRS, EDGE, 3G, HSDPA, HSPA+

Parent organizations
  
Global Telecom Holding, VEON Ltd.

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Banglalink (Bengali: বাংলালিংক), is one of the largest cellular service providers in Bangladesh. Banglalink Digital Communications Ltd. (previously Orascom Telecom Bangladesh Ltd.) is fully owned by Telecom Ventures Ltd. (previously Orascom Telecom Ventures Ltd.) of Malta, which is a 100% owned subsidiary of global telecom holding. following business combination, in April 2011, between Vimpelcom Ltd. and Wind Telecom S.P.A, Vimpelcom owns 51.92% shares of global telecom holding. Vimpelcom is one of the world’s largest integrated limited telecommunications services operators providing voice and data services through a range of traditional and broadband mobile and fixed technologies in Russia, Italy, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Algeria, Pakistan, Burundi, Zimbabwe, Central African Republic, Canada and Bangladesh. Vimpelcom is headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands and is listed as an ads on the Nasdaq global select market under the symbol “VIP”.

Contents

Banglalink attained 1 million subscribers by December 2005 and 3 million subscribers in October 2006. In less than two years, by December 2007, Banglalink overtook Aktel (Now Robi) to become the second largest operator in Bangladesh with more than 7.1 million customers.

As of September 2015, Banglalink had a subscriber base of 32.61 million with 24.81% market share. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Telecom Ventures Ltd. of Malta which is owned by Global Telecom Holding.

Banglalink had 1.03 million connections until December 2005. The number of Banglalink users increased by 257 per cent and stood at 3.64 million at the end of 2006, making it the fastest growing operator in the world of that year. In August 2006, Banglalink became the first company to provide free incoming calls from BTTB for both postpaid and prepaid connections. On August 20, 2008, Banglalink got past the landmark of a 10 million subscriber base.

History

Sheba Telecom (Pvt.) Ltd. was granted license in 1989 to operate in the rural areas of 199 upazilas. Later it obtained nationwide 15-year GSM license in November 1996 to extend its business to cellular mobile, radio telephone services. It launched operation in the last quarter of 1997 as a Bangladesh-Malaysia joint venture.

In July 2004, it was reported that Egypt based Orascom Telecom is set to purchase the Malaysian stakes in Sheba Telecom through a hush-hush deal, as Sheba had failed to tap the business potentials in Bangladesh mainly due to a chronic feud between its Malaysian and Bangladeshi partners. An agreement was reached with Orascom worth US$25 million was finalized in secret. The pact has been kept secret for legal reasons, considering financial fallout and because of the feud. The main reason for the undercover dealing was the joint venture agreement between the Bangladeshi and the Malaysian partners, which dictates that if any party sells its Sheba shares, the other party will enjoy the first right to buy that.

Integrated Services Ltd. (ISL), the Bangladeshi partner, was being ‘officially’ shown as purchasing the shares held by Technology Resources Industries (TRI) of Malaysia for $15 million. ISL then paid another $10 million to Standard Chartered Bank to settle Sheba's liabilities.

In September 2004, Orascom Telecom Holdings purchased 100% of the shares of Sheba Telecom (Pvt.) Limited. It was acquired for US$60 million. Sheba had a base of 59,000 users, of whom 49,000 were regular when it was sold. Afterward it was re-branded and launched its services under the "Banglalink" brand on February 10, 2005.

In March 2008, Sheba Telecom (Pvt.) Limited changed its name as Orascom Telecom Bangladesh Limited, matching its parent company name.

In July 2013, following the 2011 ownership restructuring in the parent company, the company name changed for the second time to Banglalink Digital Communications Ltd.

Numbering scheme

Banglalink uses the following numbering scheme:

+880 19 87434664 N1N2N3N4N5N6N7N8

Where, 880 is the ISD code for Bangladesh and is needed only in case of dialing from outside Bangladesh.

19 is the access code for Banglalink as allocated by the Government of Bangladesh. Omitting +880 will require using 0 in place of it instead to represent local call, hence 019 is the general access code.

N1N2N3N4N5N6N7N8 is the subscriber number.

Prepaid packages

Banglalink currently offers two prepaid plans. All the prepaid plans come in two phases—Standard (T&T incoming and outgoing with nationwide dialing and ISD) and M2M. All connections provide GPRS to subscribers.

  • Desh, with the slogan Ek desh Ek Rate! (means one country one rate!), is one of the cheapest prepaid plans in the country by tariff. It also has three FnF numbers (Friends and Family) with cheaper rates for frequent call destinations. Desh was launched in 2006.
  • Desh rang was launched as a brand extension to enrich the brand of desh. Rang is a Bengali word which means color. It is introduced with the catchphrase Rangiye Din Apnar Jeebon (means color your life.). This package is aimed for customers who mainly make calls to their own network and are heavy SMS users. It offers four on-net FnF numbers, but no off-net FnF number.

    • Former packages:

  • Regular prepaid was the first package Banglalink had to offer. It is currently unavailable in the market.
  • Ladies, first!, with the slogan Shomporker Network (means network of relationships), was tailored for women. It offered four FnF numbers. It was launched in 2005 and is currently unavailable in the market. It introduced 1 second pulse for the first time in the prepaid market.
  • Be linked! was launched in 2005. It was later taken over by Desh package as all the Be linked! customers were automatically migrated to Desh.

    • Postpaid packages

    Currently there are three postpaid plans from Banglalink for its tail customers. These packages are known as Enterprise Personal, which is a subset of much larger Banglalink enterprise. All packages come with T&T local, nationwide dialing, ISD and e-ISD connectivity.

  • Personal package
  • Personal supplementary
  • Personal call and control

    • Former packages:

  • Upper class, a postpaid platform, was launched on July 31, 2005. It was mainly targeting slightly upscale consumers. upper class was known for offering purple carpet treatment to its clients, giving special attention with separate counters at sales and customer care centers and a dedicated hotline. It had numerous packages under two different tariff plans—tailor made and made to measure. In addition to those, it introduced a hybrid product named call and control designed to offer the value of postpaid with the control of prepaid. Later Enterprise Personal took control of upper class.

    • Banglalink Enterprise offers a wide range of products and services to suit the needs of the business community. Companies under the enterprise package are provided with a dedicated enterprise relationship manager who provides them with personalized customer care round the clock. Other benefits of enterprise include customized packages with attractive call charges and connection price, enterprise SMS broadcast, enterprise short code, international roaming, missed call alerts, free voice mail retrieval, fax and data service, call conferencing, special offer for family members and many more. It was first launched in December, 2006. The current packages are:

  • Enterprise corporate; targeted at the corporate segment
  • Enterprise SME; targeted at the SME segment
  • Enterprise personal

    • Prior to the launch of Banglalink enterprise, Banglalink served the business clientele through a similar platform named Banglalink professional.

    Banglalink delivers customer care using its call centers and customer care networks. Currently Banglalink provides customer care services to its clients through:

  • Banglalink sales & care centres
  • Banglalink points Banglalink Points are aimed at providing a complete mobile solution, connections, handsets, accessories and provide selected customer services like SIM replacement, reconnection, bill payment etc. They are located at key points around the country. Kallol Group, a local distribution company, had partnered with Banglalink to operate at least forty Banglalink points throughout the country. As of March, 2008, the deal with Kallol Group has been called off and Banglalink is focusing on managing its own customer care centers.
  • Banglalink service points
  • Banglalink care lines are call centers serving customers 24 hours 7 days a week with instant solutions.

    • Criticisms and penalty

    In October, 2007, BTRC fined Banglalink Tk. 1.25 billion for its involvement in illegal VoIP or call termination business. The then BTRC chairman major general (retd.) Manzurul Alam confirmed Banglalink's involvement in the illegal trade. Banglalink, however, in a statement said the company has agreed to make a one time fixed payment of Tk. 1.25 billion to the government as compensation for its loss in revenues.

    References

    Banglalink Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA