Dhaka: The total number of mobile phone subscribers of six mobile companies has reached at 12,26,56,662 on February 2015.

Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader, also in charge of Post Telecommunication and ICT (Information and Communication Technology) ministry, told this in Parliament in reply to a question of treasury bench member Didarul Alam from Chittagong-4 constituency.

During the question and answer session in the House with Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury in the chair, Quader presented a comparative statistics of six mobile subscribers as follows:

Grameen Phone Limited (GP) 5,15,98,560, Robi Axiata Limited (Robi) 2,64,14,197, Banglalink Digital Communications Limited 3,15,15,065, Airtel Bangladesh Limited (Airtel) 79,43,615, Pacific Bangladesh Telecom Limited (Citycell) 12,63,171 and Teletalk Bangladesh Limited (Teletalk) 39, 22,054.

Replying to another question of treasury bench member Nijam Uddin Hazari from Feni-2, the minister said the members of BTRC (Bangladesh Telecommunication Regularity Commission) and the law enforcement agencies conducted drive against 303 illegal VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) from 2007 to 2015.

He said BRTC constituted a 87-member committee to prevent illegal VoIP uses and also lodged 74 cases in this connection. The commission also cancelled licenses of five PSTN and 32 ISP operators.

‘Since 2014 to 2105, a total of 44,75,677 SIM or RUIM were closed by applying operator’s self-regulation system while 7,24,199 other SIMs were closed from 2012 to January 2015,’ the minister added.