Staff Correspondent

Two state-owned telecom service providers — Teletalk Bangladesh Ltd and Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board — are likely to sign a vendor's agreement next month to transfer all of Teletalk's assets and liabilities from the BTTB to the mobile operator.

Despite being registered as a public limited company, all the assets and liabilities of the mobile phone operator are deemed to be BTTB's as it implemented the first phase of the government's 10 lakh mobile phone project to offer cheap mobile phone service across the country.

Later, the BTTB did not transfer the assets and liabilities to the Teletalk because of a dispute on ascertaining the actual assets and liabilities of the mobile operator which, in some cases, has been using BTTB's infrastructure to support its network.

The BTTB initially claimed Tk 600 crore from Teletalk for using its infrastructure which in September it decided to waive in response to the cash-strapped mobile operator's request. 'We are hoping to sign the vendor agreement in March after completing all the formalities by the end of this month,' said an official of the post and telecommunications ministry.

Ministry officials said the agreement would also allow Teletalk to negotiate independently with banks and other financial institutions for getting a loan for its Tk 542 crore expansion project, which is aimed at acquiring around 18 lakh subscribers by the end of 2008.

Teletalk, which started its commercial service in March 2005, is struggling to expand its network capacity because of fund constraint. It has so far invested around Tk 800 crore in building infrastructure across the country.

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