Lulling the allnighters to sleep?

BTRC [Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission] has issued a decree (should it be called a decree) to the Mobile Phone Operators in Bangladesh to cease the "free" packages to continue. According to their Chairman, this free packages, invariably enduring the period between midnight and sunrise, are debilitating to the morale of young generation. These free packages are also keeping the network full to the brim, and emergency could really be left aside due to the unprecedented reponse to the lure of having free chat all night long, observes the commission.

As if putting a tarrif on the night-calls would get these young people off the habit.

Our Mobile Moghuls mourn this decree. I have seen them, almost on the verge of shedding tears, throwing up their anxieties on the present and future of their business, and the whole show reminded me of my uncle's crocodile farm. One of the marketing machos kept a somber, long face and commented that freebies are popular worldwide, and there is no such decree in any country in these days. One of his competitors but brother at arms, retorted that the timing of this decree indicates a favor accomplished to one of his competitors, while he is being loved in the butt, and that is not fair. And they talked about their dreams of taking Bangladesh to the golden age of telecom and their nightmares on having been brutally tripped in this journey by this decree-with-no-foresight by BTRC.

The subscribers are also not very comfortable with this decree. They were having fun with these free packages, they could find a little shade while the scorching tarrifs felt like a pain in the purse under the sun, and a little cool breeze of not-spending-but-chatting-on charged up their spirits. Why should free things be banned like these?

I'm ashamed to say, I found it funny. I laughed a lot when this reportage was being televised. Perhaps guilty pleasure, but I was having a lot of it. But everything simmers down after some moment.

First of all, are these packages really free? I don't think so. It's been quite a while since one giant launched this package, visibly targetted at the population group stirred by puberty, and also those who couldn't shake the pubertal memories off. And they are not to be blamed. The cellphone has become an icon for them, a separate entity to present them to the world. This tool has become their regent. The home phone is still a taboo, it's somehow kept under the vigilant eyes of disciplinarian parents, but the cellphone is beyond any muzzle. So why not sneaking into the nightlife? And nightlife, I regret to say being a veteran, is never free.

It's only human. It's only normal. Everyone gets these urges to mingle with people, especially of opposite sex. I shouldn't be preaching about parental controls because I ducked under it too when I was younger, but it seems, just as the usage rates, parental control also offers some peak, offpeak, and super offpeak hours.

Why letting it loose on the night and tightening up the noose in daytime? The offpeak is quite a misnomer if we're talking about night in Bangladesh now, the operators have successfully yielded a higher usage at night now. So we have a whole 24 hours of peak now. So why not charging less per pulse? Let people talk whenever they like at less tarrif, but for god's sake, let these guys have some decent sleep!

BTRC could never play a technically viable and correct role, but they have let some sharks loose, pretty loose and now they're trying to tame it like a dolphin. It's pretty difficult when people become bite-aholic, don't you think so?

I demand a 24 hour long 1 BDT/min connections, and let me pick my own peak to call my friends, families and beloved.