The National Board of Revenue (NBR) is going to introduce online registration service for business firms within next January, besides making sure unitary registration number for income tax, VAT, customs and registrar of joint stock companies.
State-owned BTCL has hit the doldrums, unable to provide new land phone connections in most metropolitan areas including Dhaka, but still has lofty plans. There are ten private sector operators providing land phone services across the country apart from BTCL. Together, the state-run and private companies provide just 1,571,748 land phone connections across a country with a population of over 150 million.
The Digital ICT Fair-2009, an annual gala exposition of computer and its accessories, is gaining momentum every day with a large number of visitors showing their keen interest to the latest brands of the most modern scientific apparatus. Nearly 50,000 people, mostly students, have so far visited the fair since its inauguration on November 7 by information minister Abul Kalam Azad, organiser sources said.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police is being digitally equipped from this month, for a more effective and modern crime fighting force, officials say. WiMAX wireless technology is being installed at each of the city's police stations for better communications to quash crime and terror in the capital.
The number of BTCL customers could not reach even 1,000 though the high-speed broadband internet service was launched seven months ago. To increase the number of customers, the state-owned Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Ltd (BTCL), has now introduced three new packages and reduced charges for its other packages.
Bangladesh Bank yesterday launched the trial run of newly introduced Automated Clearing House (ACH), as part of its move to digitalise the country's banking system. Under the new automated system, banks will not need to send their cheques physically to the clearing house at the central bank for effecting fund transfer. Now the banks can do the job online from their own offices using machine readable cheques and the funds will be transferred electronically.
The government has decided to produce low-cost land phone and mobile phone sets, laptop and different telephone tools and machinery in the country. Under the imitative, Bangladesh Telephone Shilpa Sangstha (BTSS) has already floated an international tender to procure necessary technology and equipment from abroad, according to sources in the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications.
All efforts of detectives to track down criminals involved in extortions and issuing various threats over cellphones are going in vain due to their use of fake registration for mobile SIM cards and fake international mobile equipment identity (IMEI) numbers. Despite rise of extortions and death threats using cellphones by criminals, law-enforcers and Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) can do nothing against them as the authorities concerned can only lock those SIMs.
The latest switching technology from Ericsson will help operator Grameenphone meet the needs of its expanding subscriber base - currently 44 percent of the Bangladeshi market - and pave the way for the quick and cost-effective future introduction of new services such as mobile broadband.
Reiterating the present government's commitment to building Digital Bangladesh, Information Minister Abul Kalam Azad yesterday said IT education would be made compulsory at secondary level by 2013.
