The telecom regulator is going to take a hard line against Interconnection Exchange (ICX) operators for recovering dues worth Tk418 crore piled up till June last.
The outstanding amount stood more than Tk1,000 crore from revenue sharing, license fees and late fees between August 2012 and June 2014. It, however, collected rest of the amount.
Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) at a meeting held at its headquarters in the city on Monday decided to go tough on case-to-case basis – serving legal notices and even adopting other legal measures.
At the same time, BTRC high ups decided to recommend amendment to the existing guideline, according to meeting sources.
According to officials, although the 26 ICX companies owe a huge amount of money to BTRC, they are dillydallying in paying their dues as most of the ICX operators are strongly backed by influential ruling party politicians.
Out of the total dues, the ICX operators have so far paid only Tk496 crore as revenue sharing while their total dues stand at Tk896 crore.
The ICX operators have also pending dues on license fees worth Tk14.3 crore for the year in 2014 while Tk3.42 crore for the year 2013 with late fees.
In 2012, BTRC recommended to give more ICX licenses but the government awarded 23 licenses along with the then existing three.
The ICX operators route international and domestic calls and link between the other operators like international gateway operators and mobile telephone operators.
According to the BTRC data, Getco Telecommunication has dues worth Tk32 crore, M&H Telecom Tk40 crore, Bangla ICX Ltd Tk18 crore, Voicetel Ltd Tk36 crore, Bantel Ltd Tk12 crore, Integrated Service Ltd Tk39 crore, Jibandhara Solution Tk9 crore, Cross World Telecom Tk6 crore, Tele Exchange Tk14 crore and Micre Trade Tk29 crore for revenue sharing.
The data also showed that Bangla Telecom has dues worth Tk5 crore, Vertex Communication Tk9 crore, Agni System Tk17 crore, Paradise Telecom Tk17 crore, Teleplus Network Tk2 crore, Gazi Networks Tk6 crore, Ring Tech BD Tk19 crore, Mother Telecommunications Tk1 crore, Cloud Tel Tk7 crore, New Generation Telecom Tk10 crore, Imam Network Tk7 crore, Soft Tex Ltd Tk8 crore, Purple Telecom Tk5 crore, SR Telecom Tk5 crore while MM Communications has dues worth Tk25 crore.
“As the companies are not paying the outstanding dues for a long time, the commission has decided to take regulatory action against the ICX operators,” said a senior BTRC official of the legal wing.
He, however, said the commission decided to go on case by case basis. Even, it can go for scraping their licenses or lodges cases for the sake of collecting the money.
The BTRC had earlier in September last year blocked 10 international gateway operators for not paying their dues worth Tk275 crore. BTRC officials informed, they have so far sent 17 letters to collecting the amount from the ICX operators.
The BTRC officials said although the IGW operators were paying their dues in fractions, some of the operators are dillydallying in paying their respective dues because of their influential political links.
The BTRC has recently increased the revenue sharing of the ICX operators from international calls to 17.5% from 15%.
Sources also informed, BTRC has other Tk685.42 crore owes to international gateway (IGW) operators and only six of them owes Tk523.63 crore and BTRC also filled case five of them so far.
IGW operators have so far paid Tk83.1 core for the annual license fee of 2013 while Tk86.25 crore for 2014.
BTRC owes Tk35.83 lakh to International Internet Gateway (IIG) operators as annual license fees while Tk9.42 crore as revenue sharing, sources also informed.