Citycell
| Company type | Limited |
|---|---|
| Industry | Telecommunication |
| Founded | 1989 |
| Headquarters |  8th Floor Pacific Center, 14, Mohakhali C/A, Dhaka, Bangladesh |
Area served | 61 districts and 470 thanas |
Key people | Chye Hoon Pin (CEO) |
| Products | Telephony, CDMA |
| Parent | Singtel 45%, Pacific Motors Limited 31.43%, Far East Telecom Limited 23.57% |
| Website | www.citycell.com |
CityCell (Pacific Bangladesh Telecom Limited) is the first mobile communications company of Bangladesh. It is the only CDMA network operator in the country. As of 31st March, 2007, Citycell's total mobile subscriber base was 1.2 million, up 137 per cent or 680,000 from a year ago.
History
In 1989 Bangladesh Telecom Limited (BTL) was awarded a license to operate cellular, paging, and other wireless communication networks. Then in 1990 Hutchison Bangladesh Telecom Limited (HBTL) was incorporated in Bangladesh as a joint venture between BTL and Hutchison Telecommunications (Bangladesh) Limited. HBTL began commercial operation in Dhaka using the AMPS mobile technology in 1993 and became the 1st cellular operator in South Asia[1]. Later that year Pacific Motors bought 50% of BTL. By 1996 HBTL was renamed as Pacific Bangladesh Telecom Limited (PBTL) and launched the brand name "CityCell Digital" to market its cellular products.
Numbering Scheme
Citycell uses the following numbering scheme for its subscribers
+88 011 N1N2N3N4N5N6N7N8 where 880 is the International Subscriber Dialling Code for Bangladesh and is needed only in case of dialing from outside Bangladesh.
11 is the prefix for Citycell as allocated by the government of Bangladesh. Omitting +880 will require to use 0 in place of it instead to represent local call, hence 011 is the general prefix.
The number N1 to N8 is the subscriber number.
Products Offered
Citycell offers prepaid, postpaid and fixed phone plans. Since Citycell operates in CDMA, RIM's are usually sold with a phone mostly cheap Chinese sets produced by ZTE, Huawei, Samsung and Motorola. Citycell currently has the cheapest phone+connection tariff at 1399 taka.
Prepaid
The prepaid plans are branded as Hello Tomake, Aalap Classic, Prepaid PCO and Landcell. CityCell started offering prepaid plans from 2003. It was the first to offer a prepaid plan with BTTB connectivity in the same year. During 2005-6, the company made great strides in its prepaid product offering. In 2005, it launched the "Aalap Call Me" plan- the first phone plan with negative tariff in the country. In this plan customers get credit added to their balance when they receive calls from other CityCell subscribers. In the same year, CityCell launched "Aalap Super" plan. Subcribers of this plan could make free calls to other CityCell subcribers during late night hours. This espoused numerous copycat products from its competitors. Later that year the national telecoms regulator ordered all phone companies to cease offering free call facility. In 2006, CityCell launched "Hello 0123" plan. The name 0123 signified tariff of Tk 0 for calls to one CityCell number of the subcriber's choice, Tk 1 for calls to two other CityCell numbers, Tk 3 for calls to all other CityCell numbers and Tk 4 for calls to all other networks. This plan was followed up with a string of other spinoff plans that continue into 2007.
Postpaid
The postpaid plan is branded as Citycell Supreme.
Customer Care Center
There are 6 Customer care centers of Citycell in the country. One for each division. There are another 1000 Customer care Points scattered around the country. [citation needed]
References
External links
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