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Bhutan Development |
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Bhutan Information |
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All district headquarters connected
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With
Gasa connected to the cellular service end of February 2007, Bhutan
Telecom's B-Mobile has connected ...
...
the district headquarters of all the 20 dzongkhags,
...
roughly 60 percent of the country's geography and ...
...
services available to about 80 percent of the population. |
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Besides
dzongkhag headquarters, the service was also available in satellite towns
and some portions of the national highway.
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According
to B-Mobile officials connectivity will be available throughout the entire
country, along the highways and even remotest gewogs.
Started
in 2003 with connectivity in Thimphu, Paro and Chukha dzongkhags and with
4383 subscribers, B-Mobile today had installed 48 base transceiver stations
in all the districts covering 103 gewogs, and with 85,659 subscribers as
of this month. |
According
to operations and B-Mobile division's general manager Tandi Wangchuk, the
service had generated a revenue of about Nu. 450 million last year.
Ironically
B-Mobile's teething problems had been an exponential increase in the customer
base resulting in network congestion or cellular clogging particularly
in the larger urban centres. This too had been taken care of when on Monday
the 'base station controller' (BSC) was expanded and upgraded.
From
the initial 72,000 BHCA (busy hour call attempts) it was increased to 150,000,
an increase by 100 percent according to a press release from B-Mobile.
Tandi
Wangchuk told Kuensel that cellular clogging should not be a problem anymore
and besides the service provider would also deploy 'cellular-on-wheels',
a temporary station on vehicles to cater to temporary congestions, which
occurred during public gatherings.
While
connecting the unconnected would be carried out phase-wise in next few
years B-Mobile would now also focus on value added services, according
to Tandi Wangchuk.
Migrating
prepaid subscribers to a more sophisticated intelligent network platform
which was done recently was one. Others soon to be introduced includes
e-top-up where charging a phone would not require a standard voucher. The
dealers would charge it immediately, without any paper, and to any amount
as preferred by the customers.
Within
this year customers would be able to send emails and browse the net while
interactive voice response, which today was on English only, would also
be available in Dzongkha.
The
network would also be upgraded to GPRS/EDGE (general packet radio services/enhanced
data rate for GSM evolution) by the end of this year. This would allow
data delivery over cell phones facilitating growth of content for both
commercial and entertainment purposes.
With
PP or peer-to peer facility a customer could also transfer the balance
from one phone to another.
Among
others, low value vouchers, like the Nu. 50 vouchers, would again be made
available as it had high demand.
B-Mobile
had international roaming agreements with over 90 mobile operators in 32
countries. Customers expect the services to get even better when the Tashi
Group launches their cellular service some time towards the end of this
year.
"We
are not really worried about competition because we have had a good start,"
said Tandi Wangchuk. Service charges on all services provided by Bhutan
Telecom -mobile, fixed phones and internet - is to be revised beginning
April this year.
| This article was contributed by Bishal Rai, Kuensel, Bhutan's National Newspaper
2007 |
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