Novotel Limited is one of the four international gateway companies in Bangladesh. Techistan met two of the four, Novotel Limited and Bangla Trac Communications. In 2007, Bangladesh invited private firms to bid on the open international gateways. The policy legalized voIP.

Mr. Hasibur Rashim, Head of International Carrier Relations of Novotel Limited, and Techistan were participating in PTC 2010 in Honolulu, Hawaii where the new kind of telcos like his seemed to be the majority at PTC as opposed to mainly incumbents in the past decade.

Novotel has been in business for 1 1/2 years, very new,  terminating outbound and SMS and originating international voice. Their aim in meeting with other carriers and companies in Hawaii was to expand their services,  coverage areas, and partnerships.

Novotel has more clients than ever in Canada, USA, and UK, many Bangladeshi expats, successful traveling businesspeople, and tourists. Novotel plans to attend CTIA Wireless in Las Vegas, ITW in Washington DC, ITEXPO West in Los Angeles for the first time, and Capacity Asia 2010 in Kuala Lumpur, looking for more opportunities.

Bangladesh, as of 2009, had 1.39 million landlines and 45.7 mobile lines in use. The mobile figure makes them number 22 in the world. Fixed line density is 1 per 100 and mobile subscriberships are 30 per 100 persons. Their country code is 880 and landing point for the SEA-ME-WE-4 fiber-optic submarine cable system provides links to Europe, the Middle East and Asia. They access six satellite earth systems. As of 2008, there were 556,000 Internet users.

Find more information about Novotel Limited at http://www.novotel-bd.com/.