Rolv-Erik Spilling, executive vice president of Telenor; Vivek Sood, CEO of Grameenphone; and Andreas Gal, chief technology officer at Mozilla, attend the unveiling of Firefox-based smartphone developed by Symphony, in Dhaka yesterday. Photo: GP

Leading mobile operator Grameenphone and local handset brand Symphony yesterday launched a Tk 4,650 smartphone that runs on Mozilla's Firefox operating system.  
This marks the first joint release of Mozilla's low-cost, open web smartphones by a mobile operator in Asia.
The phone, called GoFox F15, is developed by Symphony, the leading mobile phone brand.
Customers of Bondhu, Grameenphone's youth offer, will be able to enjoy a range of benefits with the Firefox OS, including 20MB free internet per day.
“As part of our ambition to bring internet for all, we want to simulate the experience of smartphones and creation of local content," said Vivek Sood, chief executive officer of GP, at a launching ceremony in Dhaka.
"This offer is the first of its kind in Bangladesh, and we believe this will serve as a strong stimulus for increased internet usage across the country.”
The GoFox phone comes loaded with the new WowBox service from Telenor Digital, designed to get customers on the internet right away free of charge.  

All they have to do is visit the phone's marketplace and the WowBox awards them with 20 MB of free data per day.  
In a statement released by Telenor, Andreas Gal, chief technology officer in Mozilla, said his company is happy to partner with GP to bring Firefox OS phones to more users in Asia. The handset will be available from September 28. Bookings will start on September 17 and can be placed through GP's website www.grameenphone.com.