The cellphone operator introduced the service styled 'HealthLine' in November last year in cooperation with Telemedicine Reference Centre Ltd (TRCL), a local electronic medical consultancy firm.

"On all the three days of the fair, visitors enthusiastically wanted to know about the service and procedures to get access to the service as it was a very new offer to them," said Samir Majumder, an officer of Fabric Optic Network of Grameenphone.

"This is comparatively a new service in the country and it is very important to me that I have access to medical services at anytime just through a cellphone," said Saiful Hossain, a visitor.

Grameenphone provides this service with the help of TRCL that has employed more than 45 doctors who work in three shifts round-the-clock to provide the service.

"We usually receive between 20 and 30 thousand calls per day and we can entertain 15 calls simultaneously. However, the call receiving capacity will increase in near future," said Sikder M Zakir, managing director of TRCL.

He also said currently the company is providing services only for Grameenphone but it will expand its network in near future as other operators have shown interest in getting this service through TRCL.

As yesterday was the weekend, a large number of visitors also thronged other stalls at the show.

Around 58 exhibitors participated in the yearly event, which was co-sponsored by American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Bangladesh and US Embassy in Dhaka.

The companies from sectors like banking, oil and lubricant, energy and power, machinery, leather, beverage, electronics and cosmetics took part in the show.