The number of call drops in the Grameenphone (GP) network during the period from July 2022 to July 2023 increased compared to that in the previous year, while it decreased in all the other mobile networks, according to a recent report of the telecom regulator.

The number of Grameenphone’s call drops increased to 58.26 million during that period from 53.81 million in the previous year. The number of their call drops increased by 8.26% year on year, according to the Bangladesh Telecom Regulatory Commission (BTRC) report.

The second largest operator, Robi Axiata, faced around 28.84 million call drops during the stipulated period,  which was 45% less than 52.39 million in the previous year.

Over the Banglalink network, the number of call drops in the stipulated one year was 18.97 million – 3.46% less than 19.65 million in the previous one year.

Call drops in Teletalk decreased by 33.28% year on year as the state-owned operator had around 494,610 call drops from July 2022 to July 2023, while it had 741,310 in the previous year.

Collectively, the number of call drops decreased in all four networks by 4% year on year in July this year.

The BTRC report showed that mobile network operators were struggling to maintain quality of services due to limitations in technological infrastructure.

Regarding the increase in call drops, GP Head of Communications Sharfuddin Ahmed Chowdhury said they always comply with the BTRC guidelines and provide the best quality service to their customers.

“Our call drop rate is only 0.3%, which is much lower than the 2% threshold set by the regulator in the MNO’s telecom licences. We are always striving to improve our network performance, but we also face some challenges beyond our control,” Sharfuddin Ahmed Chowdhury told Daily Sun on Tuesday.

The Grameenphone officials said external issues like interference from illegal repeaters or jammers that block signals, frequent and unexpected fibre cuts without prior notice by third parties, and unstable power supply caused call drops.

“We are working closely with BTRC and other stakeholders to overcome these issues. Furthermore, we compensate our valued customers for any type of call drops, regardless of the cause,” said Chowdhury.

Telecommunication experts said call drops happened due to an imbalance in the ratio of users against the spectrum allocated for the respective operators.

The telecom regulators have taken a number of steps to maintain the quality of services, including tower-sharing for cheaper and faster network expansion.

“BTRC as telecom regulator continues inspection of mobile networks apart from identifying the QoS [quality of service] indicator and setting targets for the operators. BTRC issued a directive regarding compensating for the call drop since the end user has to face a lot of troubles due to it,” reads BTRC’s statement in response to the Daily Sun’s query in this regard.

Regarding the call drops, Telecom Minister Mustafa Jabbar said the mobile network operators are focusing on ‘business only’ rather than improving their quality of services.

“We should think about the people’s benefits. If anyone wants to do business, they should comply with the regulation and quality of services. They (operators) are not working where they should concentrate,” Mustafa Jabbar told the Daily Sun.

In August, GP recorded 82.1 million active mobile connections, up from 81.8 million in July. Similarly, Robi Axiata saw an increase from 56.8 million in July to 57.3 million in August.

Banglalink also experienced growth, with active connections rising from 42.3 million in July to 42.7 in August.