IGWs hike call termination rate without approval
A forum of gateway operators yesterday increased the international incoming call termination rate by 33.33 percent to 2 cents per minute without any approval from the government or the telecom regulator.
The International Gateway Operators Forum (IOF) did not even inform the government or the regulator of the hike, which will also affect government's revenue.
Both the telecom division and Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission remain tight-lipped.
With the hike, the forum will earn an additional $15.8 million a month.
"Our forum members have started implementing the new rate," said Khandakar Muzharul Haque, deputy chief executive officer of the IOF.
He, however, said they will continue to share revenue with the government at the previous rate, which was 1.5 cents per minute.
From the 1.5-cent earnings, the regulator gets 40 percent, mobile phone operators 22.5 percent, IGWs 20 percent and interconnection exchanges 17.5 percent.
But as the rest 0.5 cent will not be shared, the government will lose around $6.32 million a month, while mobile operators will lose $3.55 million and other ICT operators $2.77 million. Aneek R Haque, a counsel at the Supreme Court, said: "This is a horrible situation in the sector."
According to their licences, the IGWs must share revenue with the other four parties, said Haque, a former senior legal consultant of the BTRC who conducted the IGW auction in 2008. "The government should act on it to save its revenue as well as save the industry."
The Daily Star was unable to reach Tarana Halim, the state minister for telecom, and Sunil Kanti Bose, BTRC chairman, for comments despite several attempts, as they did not receive calls or refused to meet in person.
Md Faizur Rahman Chowdhury, the telecom secretary, had earlier said what the IGW forum is trying to do is a crime, but he could not be reached yesterday for comments.
Officials of four mobile phone operators, all asking not to be named, have expressed fear over a rise in illegal calls for this move. Legal calls were 125 million minutes per day two months ago, but after the launch of the forum, which is a two-tier clearing house, the number came down to 105 million minutes per day, they said.
"This time, legal calls may fall even further, and illegally terminated calls will increase, and we will lose revenue," a senior official of a mobile phone operator said.
Last September, the government halved the international incoming call termination rate to 1.5 cents. In January, the government also approved a cartel -- the IOF -- in the incoming call termination market, where only seven IGW operators can terminate international calls, although 23 IGWs are in operation.
Other IGWs bring calls from international carriers but they can only send those to the seven IGWs.