The reports of Ookla and Open Signal are questionable: BMPCA

Bangladesh Mobile Phone Consumers’ Association- BMPCA has responded to the process and validity of Ookla and Open Signal's reports on Bangladesh's network standards. They expressed their response at a press conference held at the Crime Reporters Association meeting hall in Segunbagicha on Sunday. The president of the organization Mohiuddin Ahmed said, last year we saw that Ookla reported Bangladesh as a backward country in terms of service standards in the world. Which was 137th out of 139 countries. After the inauguration of the Padma Bridge on June 25, the government banned the sale of new SIM cards of Grameen Phone by announcing the low service quality of Grameen Phone. But two days ago, a Hong Kong business organization Open Signal published a report. Where Grameenphone and Banglalink are recognized as the leading mobile operators in the country. In the press conference, he said, our question is, how much money was paid to the foreign commercial companies to bring this certificate and we do not understand that how do they issue such a certificate without any agreement with the government or control commission without ensuring the information rights of the customers. He further said, “We demand from the government that all these organizations should be brought under accountability and the information rights of the customers should be ensured and the government should see that there is no confusion among the customers.” In the press conference, Tanveer Hasan Joha, the advisory technician of the organization, said that the reporting standards of all these organizations are not correct. The claim that they have ever collected customer data from Facebook or YouTube is not acceptable. Because Facebook and YouTube never share customer information with others. So it would be a breach of data privacy and a legal offense if they accessed the customers’ device and collected the sample. The government should not take the matter lightly. He also said that it is necessary to investigate whether these organizations are collecting data abroad through malware on BTS towers. The program coordinator of the organization Md. Abu Saleh presented the article at the press conference. Among others, the general secretary of the organization Advocate Abu Bakr Siddique, central member Advocate Saheda Begum and Mita Rahman, Publicity Secretary Sheikh Farid, Bangladesh Mobile Phone Recharge Traders Association President Aminul Islam Bulu and others were present.