Citycell

Citycell (Pacific Bangladesh Telecom Limited) is the first mobile communications company of Bangladesh. It is the only CDMA network operator in the country. As of 1st March, 2008, Citycell's total mobile subscriber base is 1.56 million, up 137 per cent or 680,000 from two years ago, giving it the best growth rate of the company till date. Citycell is currently owned by Singtel with 45% stake and the rest 55% owned by Pacific Group and Far East Telecom.

By the end of 2007 Citycell had refurbished its old brand identity and introduced a new logo and corporate identity; the new logo is very reminiscent of the old logo. However the slogan has remained unchanged "because we care"

As of July, 2008 Citycell has 1.67 million subscribers .

History

In 1989 Bangladesh Telecom Limited (BTL) was awarded a license to operate cellular, paging, and other wireless communication networks. Then in 1990 Hutchison Bangladesh Telecom Limited (HBTL) was incorporated in Bangladesh as a joint venture between BTL and Hutchison Telecommunications (Bangladesh) Limited. HBTL began commercial operation in Dhaka using the AMPS mobile technology in 1993 and became the 1st cellular operator in South Asia. Later that year Pacific Motors bought 50% of BTL. By 1996 HBTL was renamed as Pacific Bangladesh Telecom Limited (PBTL) and launched the brand name "Citycell Digital" to market its cellular products.

Numbering Scheme

Citycell uses the following numbering scheme for its subscribers:

+88 011 N₁N₂N₃N₄N₅N₆N₇N₈
where, 880 is the International Subscriber Dialling Code for Bangladesh and is needed only in case of dialing from outside Bangladesh.

11 is the prefix for Citycell as allocated by the government of Bangladesh. Omitting +880 will require to use 0 in place of it instead to represent local call, hence 011 is the general prefix.

The number N₁ to N₈ is the subscriber number.

Products Offered

Citycell offers prepaid, postpaid and fixed phone plans. Since Citycell operates in CDMA, RIM's are usually sold with a phone mostly cheap Chinese sets produced by ZTE, Huawei, Samsung, Motorola and Alcatel. Citycell currently has the cheapest phone+connection tariff at 1399 taka.

Prepaid

The current only prepaid plan is branded as Citycell One. Under this package Citycell customer can call to other Citycell users for only 25 paisa and other operators for only 98 paisa all day all night. Citycell started offering prepaid plans from 2003. It was the first to offer a prepaid plan with BTTB connectivity in the same year. During 2005-6, the company made great strides in its prepaid product offering. In 2005, it launched the Aalap Call Me plan- the first phone plan with negative tariff in the country. In this plan customers get credit added to their balance when they receive calls from other Citycell subscribers. In the same year, Citycell launched Aalap Super plan. Subscribers of this plan could make free calls to other Citycell subcribers during late night hours. This espoused numerous copycat products from its competitors. Later that year the national telecoms regulator ordered all phone companies to cease offering free call facility. In 2006, Citycell launched Hello 0123 plan. The name 0123 signified tariff of Tk 0 for calls to one Citycell number of the subcriber's choice, Tk 1 for calls to two other Citycell numbers, Tk 2 for calls to all other Citycell numbers and Tk 3 for calls to all other networks. This plan was followed up with a string of other spinoff plans that continue into 2007.

Instant Load

As advertised in June 2008, Citycell became the first mobile operator to sign up for Instant Load. Instant Load is a joint effort from Dutch-Bangla Bank and Citycell that lets pre-paid account holders top up their phone through SMS anytime, without the need to visit any store or purchase any minutes. This service is being offered free-of-charge and it is the first service of its type in Bangladesh.

After receiving the SMS, Citycell automatically withdraws the desired amount from the bank account instantly. It is not known if the service is applicable for post-paid users.

Postpaid

The postpaid plan is branded as Citycell One.

Customer Care Center

There are 6 Customer care centers of Citycell in the country. One for each division and there are another 500 Customer care Points scattered around the country.

Performance

World operator rank by connections : 258th
Market Share : ≈4.5%
Market Penetration : ≈1.1%

^{*Data - Q2 2008}

Criticism and Penalty

Citycell, has been fined Tk. 1.5 billion by the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission for its involvement in illegal VoIP or international call termination.

Citycell's involvement in illegal VoIP, was discovered in May 2007 during a raid in the company's Mohakhali office by the BTRC.

References

External links

• Citycell's Homepage