Overseas calls in freefall as mobile apps take hold
International call volume through the legal channel continued its slide in fiscal 2015-16 as free mobile applications like Viber, WhatsApp and Skype are fast becoming the chosen medium for communication.
The total outgoing international call minutes stood at 27.83 crore last fiscal year, down 16.85 percent year-on-year, according to Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission's annual report, which was published last week.
The incoming international voice calls, which help the government earn foreign currency, declined 11.03 percent to 3,158.32 crore minutes in fiscal 2015-16.
BTRC Chairman Shahjahan Mahmood said they have no clear idea why this is happening.
"We don't know if the reason is illegal call termination or the rising popularity of free mobile applications like WhatsApp, Viber or WeChat."
These apps allow voice communications and multimedia sessions over the internet. "But BTRC is working to get to the bottom of the matter," he added.
However, Telecom Secretary Md Faizur Rahman Chowdhury said the decline was bound to happen given the large number of communication apps now available. "Non-resident Bangladeshis are using these mobile apps to maintain contact with their families at home," he added.
Senior officials of the telecom regulator said the 33 percent price hike by the IGW Operators' Forum (IOF), which was formed in September 2014, to transmit international calls from Bangladesh might be another reason for the decline. The official incoming international call termination rate is 1.5 cents for every minute, but IOF is charging 2 cents.
"As a result, a huge number of bypasses through the gray route are taking place," another BTRC official said.
Though the IOF is sharing revenue with the government using 1.5 cents as the termination rate, it is depriving the state of revenue in two ways.
"We are sure the government is being deprived of few hundred crores of taka every year, as the legal channel calls have been declining for more than two years now," the official said, asking not to be named.
For instance, the total incoming international call volume stood at 10 crore minutes in July 2015, which gradually came down to less than eight crore minutes in June this year. Officials said neither the government nor the telecom regulator took the initiative to sort out the price disparity by the IOF in the past two years.
When contacted, IOF officials declined to comment on the matter. However, they said, in the last six months the situation took a turn for the worse as well for the IOF as the free apps took the lead. "We are anxious about the development. Within the next few years, even domestic calls will drop if this situation continues. Even the mobile operators will have to change their business model and push data to customers," said an official of IOF.