The telecoms regulator which has not implemented a loss prevention proposal put forward by a parliamentary watchdog, is expected to reject the proposal at a meeting today, sources said.
The parliamentary standing committee on Posts, Telecommunication and Information Technology ministry, at a meeting on July 23, recommended that Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC) introduce a digital call auditing system that would accurately tally the volume of international calls.
The proposal was meant to staunch revenue losses on international calls due to alleged theft by businesses and government functionaries, according to the parliamentary watchdog.
It is being objected to by the telecoms regulator reportedly on technical grounds, available documents show.
Obtaining the working paper prepared for the meeting, the Dhaka Tribune has learned that the BTRC is arguing that it will be scheduling visits to the terminals of the International Gateway (IGW) and the Interconnection Exchange (ICX), situated on BTRC premises, to double check the accuracy of BTRC monitoring terminal data.
The Dhaka Tribune spoke with officers at different levels of the organisation and with spokesperson Md Sarwar Alam, also the BTRC secretary, but nobody could say anything about the question of implementing a digital call auditing system.
Everybody the Dhaka Tribune approached at the BTRC refused to comment on the subject.
An international tender floated in 2013 by the BTRC for a Centralised Monitoring System (CMS) was abruptly abandoned by the regulator just before the contract was awarded.
But BTRC Chairman Sunil Kanti Bose, present at the parliamentary standing committee meeting that made the recommendation, agreed with the committee’s proposal to set up a call auditing system, meeting documents show.
The committee meeting said currently there was no digital system in the BTRC server to tally international call volume. The BTRC maintains a manual system to track the volume of international calls that the IGW companies connect.
If digital call auditing was implemented, the system would instantly show live times of international calls. The IGW companies would not be in a position to reject the data.
The current set up cannot deliver absolutely certain data on call volume and revenue gains and losses.
“If there was a call auditing system to show call times, thefts during international calls would not be possible. That is why we suggested the call auditing system,” Imran Ahmed, the committee chairman, told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday over the telephone.
“Is it possible to count the duration of thousands of calls that come everyday? There are questions about the transparency of government revenue from international calls,” he said.
“As a regulator, the BTRC must have the auditing process and there can be no way to bypass it with short-cuts,” he said.
Illegal Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) allows international calls to be made by bypassing the BTRC server. The BTRC is deprived of revenue from each of these calls.
Many telecoms companies including the leading mobile phone operators were found to be involved in the illegal VOIP business.
Imran said the committee suggested not only call audits but also service audits because so many users suffered dropped calls and poor service.
An industry expert said if a CMS is introduced, illegal calls would be brought down to zero and mobile operators would be accurately monitored.
As of July 2014, the BTRC was earning around Tk7cr from 60mn minutes of incoming calls per day. At the time, IGW companies were paying the BTRC 51.75% of three US cents for each minute of an international call.
The government then halved the international call termination rate to US$0.015 from US$0.03 per minute while concurrently fixing the BTRC’s revenue share portion at 40% of the decreased call termination rate.
By November, even though incoming calls had risen to 97mn minutes every day, BTRC revenue had declined.