Post and Telecommunications Minister Faqir Mahbub Anam today urged mobile phone operators to improve their services, saying users' complaints centre on call drops, uneven rural network coverage, and mobile packages.

Operators should raise awareness of how call-drop compensation works, he said at a Robi Axiata network modernisation event at Robi’s headquarters in Dhaka.

"If you make people more aware that there is no charge deducted from them when a call drops and that the amount is returned to them, then it would help," he said.

Package validity is another common complaint, Mahbub said.

Many people say, 'I bought a Tk 500 package. I still have money, but the validity has expired, and everything is gone.' Why does this happen? If you explain these things to customers, it will make things easier for us as well, he said.

He said he raised the same concern directly with Grameenphone, Banglalink, and Teletalk to reduce such complaints.

The minister pointed to a wide gap in rural coverage, noting that he rarely sees Robi numbers among incoming calls from his own constituency despite Robi's millions of subscribers.

He urged operators not to focus only on major cities.

"Let's not leave behind those people who live in villages. I would request that Robi services be made available to them properly as well," he said, adding that tower sharing could help operators reach underserved areas.
Md Emdad Ul Bari, chairman of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, and Rehan Asad, telecom and ICT adviser to the prime minister, also spoke at the event.