The rate of international incoming telephone calls through legal channels has dropped by nearly 40% in three months from August last year.
The regulator’s December data showed the total call time came down to 125.06 crore minutes from 206.72 crore minutes in August. Such decline of legally channeled calls has dented the government’s revenue earning and affected call termination business of some private operators.
But the market sources said the situation didn’t mean that the international incoming calls time had actually dropped, rather the calls were increasingly being channeled in illegal ways.
Per minute charge of international call termination is 3 US cents (Tk2.35), as per the government rate in Bangladesh. Official sources said the country has lost Tk190 crore per month from the legal calls time fall.
“Calls are coming in their large numbers, but not through legal ways,” said Mir Nasir Hossain, president of Telecommunication Infrastructure Operators of Bangladesh (TOIB), a platform of the international gateway (IGW) operators, told the Dhaka Tribune.
“In this circumstance, we have nothing to do as it is the regulator’s (BTRC) duty to check illegal calls,” he added.
“Only three old IGWs are compliant in call channeling, but some of our partners do not maintain it, which BTRC should monitor,” said TOIB president, also managing director of Mir Telecom which is a leading IGW operator in Bangladesh. He claimed Mir Telecom is compliant in call channeling, which channels 35-40 lakh minutes a day.
According to guidelines, the government exchequer gets 51.75% of the revenue through Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission’s (BTRC) account while mobile operators receive 20% and Interconnection Exchange (ICX) operators 15%. The government gets another 5.5% from mobile operators under a revenue sharing agreement. It also receives revenue sharing amounts from ICX operators.
Though the BTRC data showed total legally-made calls declined, but the Bangladeshi expatriates made international calls from abroad more frequently from August due to political unrest in the country, said a senior executive of the regulator, preferring not to be named. He said as the regulator failed to manage the market, the government lost revenue. The market sources said as the number of expatriates is increasing every day, the international calls time was also supposed to increase. But it dropped unexpectedly, according to them.
Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) said the number of total expatriates was 80 lakh as of 2011.
Another 10 lakh Bangladeshis migrated to different countries in the following two years, leaving their families at home. International incoming calls time was supposed to increase in these two years, but didn’t. In January 2011, the total time of incoming calls was 135.6 crore minutes and in January 2012 it amounted to 143.7 crore minutes, according to the BTRC’s annual reports.
Before mid-2012, there were only four IGW operators. Then the government awarded licences to another 25 IGW operators allegedly under political consideration. The politically influential owners of the IGWs avoided revenue sharing with the government. BTRC sources said the international incoming calls time reached its lowest in last four years. It continues to decline. When contacted, the BTRC officials declined to make any comment in this respect.
Some however blamed the manpower shortage for lack of proper monitoring.
