Rethinking the Draft Telecom Ordinance 2025

The draft Bangladesh Telecommunications Ordinance 2025 has been released for public comment with a bold promise: a “modern” telecom regime that recognises the realities of the digital age – from spectrum and submarine cables to OTT, AI and IoT. But when you dive in, three big questions stand out: how independent will the regulator really be, how much can the Ministry realistically supervise, and where exactly does licensing stop and surveillance begin?

If these questions are not answered clearly now, this law could centralise power over the entire digital ecosystem in the hands of a few, while turning the regulator into a clerk and innovators into licence-seekers.

1. An “independent” BTRC – or just a technical secretariat?

The draft reiterates that the Commission (BTRC) will be responsible for regulating establishing and operating telecom systems and services, protecting consumer interest, and promoting innovation and investment in the sector. On paper, this looks like a continuation, even an enhancement, of BTRC’s role as an independent regulator. But Section 33 quietly changes the power balance.

The Commission is empowered to issue licences, permits and permissions. However, for “nationally significant licences”, a five-member committee comprising Ministers or State Ministers will be formed, and decisions on such licences will be taken at that committee level – with the Commission relegated to preparing recommendations and technical assessments. Other licences can be decided by BTRC alone without the need of approval of the Ministry (as was the case since the 2010 amendment of the 2001 Act), but the draft does not clearly define which licences will be treated as “significant at the national level”.

In a sector like telecoms, almost everything of real consequence is nationally significant: mobile operators, ISPs, Interconnection Operators, Infrastructure Operators, satellite earth stations, submarine cables, critical data centres, large content delivery networks. If those fall under this undefined category, then every major market entry, renewal, merger or acquisition will effectively require political sign-off and has three consequences:

• Regulatory independence is weakened. BTRC becomes, in practice, a technical secretariat feeding files upwards, instead of a decision-making body that can be held directly accountable for its own regulatory choices.
• Policy risks becoming politicised. Licence and merger decisions can be influenced by short-term political calculations, factional disputes or lobbying, rather than clear, publicly known criteria.
• Investor/ service providers’ uncertainty increases. If big decisions shift from a specialised regulator to a rotating group of ministers, long-term investors will factor in greater political risk and delays.

If the intention is to keep a narrow set of truly strategic licences at the political level, then the law needs to say so explicitly. “Nationally significant” should be clearly defined in the Act itself – for example, by objective thresholds (market share, coverage, critical infrastructure) and sectors – and the default should remain that BTRC decides. Where a ministerial committee overrules the Commission, it should have to publish written reasons, subject to parliamentary and judicial scrutiny.

Otherwise, the promised independence of BTRC risks becoming independence in name only.

2. A super-ministry with a generic staff
The draft goes far beyond traditional telecom infrastructure. Section 3 makes the law applicable not only to Bangladesh’s territory and cross-border telecom services, but also explicitly to “online social communication media, over-the-top (OTT) services and all digital content services, and their providers” accessible from or into Bangladesh. On top of that, the definition of “telecom services” is stretched to cover an entire universe of Internet-based and “frontier” technologies – Gov-Tech, Agro-Tech, Ed-Tech, Fin-Tech, AI and Generative AI, IoT, auto-pilot technology and “all frontier technologies.”

In practice, that means the Posts and Telecommunications Division (PTD) is writing itself into the middle of:

• Social media and content platforms
• OTT communication and streaming services
• AI and generative AI applications
• IoT and machine-to-machine systems
• GovTech and digitisation of work inside other ministries
• Questions of data localisation and “data sovereignty”
This is not a small expansion. It effectively turns PTD into a core coordinator of Bangladesh’s entire digital ecosystem. Yet nothing in the draft explains how this super-ministry is supposed to manage such a vast and specialised portfolio with its current manpower – which is largely generalist bureaucratic staff, not domain experts in AI, cryptography, cyber-security, platform governance or competition in digital markets.

An over-extended ministry with limited specialist capacity faces two risks:

1. Box-ticking over real oversight. With too many mandates and too few experts, regulation may become formalistic and reactive, focusing on paperwork rather than substantive risk assessment or market development.

2. Turf conflict and confusion. The lines between PTD, ICT Division, Digital Security Agency, central bank (for FinTech) and sectoral regulators become blurred. Businesses and citizens may find multiple agencies claiming authority over the same service.
If the State genuinely wants to manage “data sovereignty” and digital transformation across sectors, it needs more than legal language. It needs:

• A realistic division of labour between ministries and regulators
• Serious investment in specialist human resources and institutional capacity
• Clear coordination mechanisms, rather than all-encompassing jurisdictional claims
Without that, a sweeping legal mandate will create more confusion than control.

3. When everything is a telecom service, everyone needs a licence
Section 35 sets the core rule: for telecom and Internet services, no person may provide such services without a licence or, where applicable, a certificate – subject only to limited exceptions in sub-section (3).

Combine that with the very broad definition of “telecom services” and the expansive scope in Section 3 – covering online social media, OTT and all digital content services – and you get a troubling picture.

Read literally, anyone who:
• Operates an app, platform or service over the Internet,
• Provides content or communication that can be accessed from Bangladesh, or
• Runs an IoT-based system touching Bangladeshi soil
could be told they are “providing telecom services involving Bangladesh” and therefore must obtain a licence or certificate from BTRC.

That raises some hard questions:
• Will every small local app, SaaS startup, YouTube-style content platform or research IoT pilot have to navigate a full licence process?
• What about global platforms whose services happen to be accessible in Bangladesh – could they be asked to take a BTRC licence simply because users here can log in?
• If so, what happens when they don’t? Will access be blocked? Will local users be criminalised for using “unlicensed” digital services?
Licensing is a powerful – and heavy – tool. It is appropriate for entities that control scarce resources (spectrum, numbering), critical infrastructure (national networks, gateways) or services with systemic risk. It is not appropriate for every web service, AI model or OTT app that rides on top of existing networks.

The draft needs a clear tiered framework:
• Full licences for network operators and critical infrastructure
• Light-touch registration or notification for certain large platforms with significant local impact and yes it helps to clarify who should be their point of contact in the country, e.g. BTRC
• Explicit exemptions for non-commercial use, small innovators, end-user content and purely foreign services with minimal local nexus
Without that, the default reading of Section 35 risks turning the entire Internet into a licensed space – and turning Bangladesh into an outlier in the global digital economy.

4. Uninterrupted networks, lawful interruptions – and a CLIP that looks like NTMC 2.0
Section 97’s prohibition on shutting down or throttling services will remain mostly symbolic unless there is a strict, transparent national protocol for when interruptions are allowed, such as:
• A clear, narrow list of grounds (e.g. specific, imminent threats)
• Written, time-bound orders by a designated high-level authority
• Mandatory judicial review – ideally before, or at least immediately after, the order
• Precise geographic and technical scope to avoid blanket shutdowns
• Public transparency reports after the fact, so citizens know how often and why disruptions occurred
That kind of protocol would accept the reality that some emergencies may require targeted interventions, while protecting citizens and businesses from arbitrary or politically motivated disruptions.


When it comes to protocol, section 97(ক), is one of the most detailed amendment in the draft that deserves praise for establishing detailed protocol, reporting, limitations, and oversight authorities for interception to be lawful. It re-introduces the concept of “lawful interception”, with references to necessity, proportionality, legality and accountability, and requires authorisation through courts or quasi-judicial bodies, subject to defined time limits. Though it is not clear why it dissolves NTMP just to be replaced/taken over by CLIP but the draft of this sub-section gives some assurance to citizens that they are not going to be subject to creepy surveillance just because someone has the technology to peep in at their disposal. On that note there are two points:

1. Most LEAs and Intelligence/Investigation agencies have procured and have been using interception tools. Some of them are static while some are mobile, it is not clear what will be done with those equipment and capabilities. As per the spirit of the law, like the equipment of NTMC, those should also be handed over to CLIP and be used as per the protocol mentions. The government may consider clarifying that in the final draft.

2. For super sensitive matters like national security and for the agencies in charge of that, it is not clear whether the same protocol would be practical.

The choice in front of us

The draft Telecom Ordinance 2025 is a serious attempt to drag a 2001-era law into an era of OTT, AI and global platforms. It recognises new technologies, speaks of consumer rights and continuous connectivity, and tries to systematise lawful interception.

But unless three core issues are fixed – real regulatory independence, a realistic institutional mandate, and clear, proportionate rules on licensing and interception – Bangladesh risks building a digital governance regime that is heavy on control and light on trust.

The consultation window is short which might need to be stretched. Multiple sessions with different stakeholders including market players, academics, experts, rights workers, and even OTT players, should take place not just to correct drafting errors, but to narrow over-broad powers, clarify definitions, and build in safeguards that protect both national interest and citizens’ rights so that our telecom law enables a modern global digital economy instead of suffocating it.

Abu Nazam M Tanveer Hossain: Public policy advocate