Citycell

Citycell (Pacific Bangladesh Telecom Limited) is the first mobile communications company of Bangladesh. It is the only CDMA network operator in the country. Citycell is currently owned by Singtel with 45% stake and the rest 55% owned by Pacific Group and Far East Telecom.

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[2]. 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 90 to 99 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.