The country’s three private mobile operators, Grameenphone, Robi Axiata and Banglalink, lost 5.9 lakh connections in April amid the Covid restrictions the government is enforcing across the country to contain the virus outbreak.

The lone state-owned operator Teletalk, however, added 60,000 connections in the month.

So, the total number of telecom connections dropped by 5.3 lakh to 17.41 crore in April from 17.46 crore in the previous month.

The connections of the telecom operators dropped due mainly to the operators’ failure to add an adequate number of connections to offset the losses of connections in the month.

Telecom operators are compelled to deactivate mobile phone numbers after a certain period of time if the numbers remain unused for a certain period of time.

Besides, the telecom operators lose customers if their clients switch to other telecom operators under the mobile number portability service.

The enforcement of Covid restrictions was a reason for suspending customer acquisition drives by the mobile operators.

The government has been enforcing the Covid restrictions since April 4 amid a fresh wave of the coronavirus outbreak. The government in phases has extended the restrictions till May 30.

In a statement made to FP on Thursday, Robi said, ‘It is very obvious that the second wave of corona pandemic has had an adverse impact on our business in April.’

‘As a result, both our subscriber base and revenue have been impacted,’ it said.

‘Mobile operators usually see a decline in the number of active subscribers and mobile data users during long festival vacations, as many people move, to their hometowns from major cities during such times,’ Banglalink chief corporate and regulatory affairs officer Taimur Rahman told FP, adding, ‘We saw it happening in last April.’

‘Due the extension of pandemic-induced lockdowns, the customer base shrunk further,’ Taimur said.

‘We believe and hope that the number will go up as people have started coming back and the current Covid situation is improving gradually,’ he said.

The BTRC data released on Thursday showed that the leading telecom operator Grameenphone’s connection base dropped to 8.05 crore at the end of April from 8.08 crore a month ago.

The number of connections of the second largest operator Robi dropped by 2.9 lakh to 5.17 crore in April from 5.19 crore in the previous month.

Banglalink’s connection base dropped by 60,000 to 3.62 crore in April from 3.63 crore a month before.

However, Teletalk’s connection base increased to 57.5 lakh in April from 56.9 lakh in March.

The number of internet connections of the operators dropped by 7.1 lakh in April.

The internet connections of the telecom operators dropped to 10.56 crore in April from 10.63 crore in the previous month.

The number of fixed broadband connections remained unchanged at 98.1 lakh in April, the BTRC data showed.