When do you allow a phone network to be ordered to shut down, Mr. BTRC Chairman?
We have seen on occasions in the past, the government orders shut-down of mobile phone networks in the name of security - the latest being the during sabotage efforts using the students and in the name of movement.
There are many things that can be talked about the operations of the BTRC, its effectiveness in making policy that facilitates the growth of the sector instead of negatively influence and also staving off the corruptions and scandals in the sector. However, we are happy that things are not at least going in the wrong direction, its at best stable if not progressing very slowly. Without going into the specifics issues (actually reserving them for the future), we would like to ask for everybody's attention to one specific point.
Does BTRC have a criteria under which government agencies are empowered to shut-down a telephone network that are being used by consumers? If not, it should.
Or a more fundamental question may be asked - should there be a provision in the law at all that empowers government agencies to order a shut-down? If yes, what are the criteria that will trigger is power?
If we think about our need as a human being, certainly security is a very important matter. Maintaining stability in the society is also important in order to continue the rights of consumers in the long term and the growth of businesses in the long term. So, if the competent authority thinks that the security situation would be worsening in the case of continuing a certain consumer service (e.g. mobile network), there is a argument that can be made that agencies or the government may consider the plugging off the service for a short time - for the sake for long term good.
But occurrences of this nature should have consequences, both in policy level and materialistic level.
The first and foremost, BTRC should have a public hearing with participation of all the stakeholders, which debates the criteria that may trigger such an extreme decision. BTRC should also recommend a sequence of events that defines how and when such a procedure can be used and who are to be involved in the decision making process.
There is another aspect of it. Whenever such an event happens, that indicates two things. Somebody in the law enforcement did not do their job - thats is why such a situation arises.
So, it is somebody in the government who is in fault. But who pays for that? The consumer. So, if such an event occurs, can the consumers ask for compensation? This consequence part can be dealt with many ways - and we recognize that all of the options might not be realistic right now. However, we want to emphasize that in the event of such occurrences, there should be some consequence of any kind. Somebody should be made to pay for faults, if not compensate the others. Every time such an occurance arises, the relevant policies that deals with security sitiations should be examined, a high-level task-force should be created to re-evaluate why the law-enforcers are failing to avoid such extreme measures aside from firing some defaulters. The constitutional commission should use its power to impose these obligations on the government to make sure that the commission can ensure its constitutional obligation of interruption free consumer service.
There is another aspect of this issue. As far as we understand the law, if the mobile operators weren't mostly weak in their corporate governance and if they haven't had some or many kind of unethical practices while doing their business (i.e. if they had their strong character), these operators should have take BTRC and the Government to the court by this time for the loss of business that they had during the shut-downs. But Alas! We don't have any such player in the private sector who has a strong character and whose past is clean, it seems.
If you thought some of the ideas are worth of your reading time, please forward it to others. If you have an ear to the members of the BTRC, members of the law enforcement, members of ICT community in Dhaka, Members of CTG, please forward it to them. If you have an ear to the journalists and news editors of the electronic media, discuss it with them. Hope they would look at the suggestions and give due diligence.
Thanks for your time,
Innovation Line
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Note: This is a freelance column, published mainly in different internet based forums. This column is open for contribution by the members of new generation, sometimes referred to as Gen 71. If you identify yourself as someone from that age-group and want to contribute to this column, please feel free to contact. Thanks to the group moderator for publishing the article.
We have not seen the Liberation War, but we know if we can free the country from corruption first, we will eventually get to other dreams soon. Because of corruption, we could not even get into information highway for years, let alone other dreams!
This is the kind of article for which we started this column. Because of ongoing mess, a gift from our older generation, we often get diverted. Now that it seems some sanity is returning in Bangladesh, we would try to go back to our original plan.
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