Third phase of Teletalk lottery draw held

A total of 1,20,694 applicants across the country have won Teletalk SIM (Subscriber's Identification Module) cards through lottery under different categories.

Teletalk Bangladesh Ltd, the state-owned mobile phone operator, held its third phase lottery draw for SIM (Subscriber's Identification Module) distribution at a city hotel yesterday.

Among the winners, 90,000 were selected under the category of Gold applicants, 20,694 under Prime-10000 and Prime-5000 categories and 10,000 under Silver category.

The lottery results are available online since 10:00 pm last night at the following web sites:

http://padma.teletalk.com.bd, http://kirtonkhola.teletalk.com.bd,

http://jamuna.teletalk.com.bd, http://karnafuli.teletalk.com.bd,

http://korotoa.teletalk.com.bd, and http://rupsha.teletalk.com.bd.

Speaking as chief guest at the lottery draw programme, Vice-Chancellor of Brac University Prof. Jamilur Reza Chowdhury said the mobile phone subscribers in the country have been subjected to pay high call charge because of a cartel of four private mobile telecom operators.

Bangladeshi subscribers pay higher call charge in comparison with that of neighbouring countries, he said.

Lower rate of call charge of the Teletalk will ease the situation to some extent, he said, adding the advent of private telecom operators has already started to improve Bangladesh's position among four to five countries with the lowest tele-density in the world.

The Teletalk will start SIM distribution in Sylhet and Chittagong on August 27 while the winners across the country will be able to collect their SIM cards within two weeks from designated branches of the Dhaka Bank, Prime Bank, Basic Bank and City Bank.

Of the 90,000 winners of Teletalk SIM under Gold category, 6,000 are from Barisal division, 22,200 from Dhaka, 28,600 from Chittagong, 10,700 from Khulna, 6,800 from Sylhet and 15,700 from Rajshahi.

In two previous lottery, 70,000 subscribers from only Dhaka won the SIM cards.

The total number of Teletalk subscribers at present is 84,000, said its General Manager Md Aminul Hasan. "This is perhaps the last episode of lottery for SIM distribution, as no further distribution will be possible in near future without expansion of Base Trans-Receiver Station (BTS)."

The existing BTS facility can cover about 80 percent of the Upazilas of 61 districts and deal with around four lakh mobile phone connections, said Teletalk Managing Director Md Obaidullah.