BICMA says BT review still on

The Bhutan InfoComm and Media Authority (BICMA) has said that its review of the Bhutan Telecom (BT) data price cut proposal is still ongoing, and they had asked BT for some more information.

The latest update is that BICMA has carried out the technical study on the possible network congestion due to the 50 percent data reduction

BICMA said its decision will be shared upon receiving further directives from the government.

BICMA said it will be sharing the outcomes of the discussions to BT, and the BT needs to implement it. Meanwhile, it said the network upgradation to minimize the congestion is an obligation and regular responsibility of the Service Provider, and BTL will need to constantly upgrade and expand the network to solve congestions in future.

BT submitted a network utility report which was reviewed by BICMA.

BICMA said as per the review and analysis by BICMA, there may not be immense network congestion due to 50 percent data reduction. This essentially means that BICMA is not accepting BT’s claim that a 50 percent cut will cause major network issues.

The financial viability or impact on BT was studied by a task force formed by the GovTech Agency initially.

A source from BT said they have submitted their a network utility report, but are yet to hear back from BICMA.

The source said that earlier in August when they submitted their initial report, it had initially been rejected and were asked to realign it more with the government directive of a 50 percent cut.

BT had then resent its proposal but said a 50 percent reduction would result in network congestion and poor quality of service due to more consumption, and here, BICMA asked for the utilization report which was submitted, and there has been nothing from BICMA yet.

A source in the government said that an initial assessment by the task force under GovTech Agency which also included BT, found room for a cut. It found that while there was a revenue impact in the short term, it would improve over time.

The taskforce suggested two options with one being a staggered cut of 25 percent for each year over two years, and another being a 50 percent cut. At the time, BT talked of network issues, however, now given that BT had made improvements, the network capacity is not as big an issue.

The source said that there was a concern in the government that the duopoly of BT and TashiCell were keeping data prices high.