Internet telephony or VoIP: The commonsense divide
ur telecom regulator should not be busy with reinventing the wheel in the name of setting the quality parameters. Being an ITU member-state, we should confidently follow the ITU guidelines on Internet telephony and VoIP.
Confusion is the keyword to characterise the advocacy for using Internet technology for telephonic applications in Bangladesh. The telecom regulator, the ICT task force and the ICT industry have been demanding its proliferation.
But instead of raising the basic issues, they are rather complicating the matter by combining Internet telephony with Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Whereas, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is precise about these two variants.
In its Internet Reports 2001, the ITU has defined the Internet telephony, "The transmission of voice over the Internet. In this insert the term is used to refer to voice carried primarily over the public Internet, not over private, managed networks."
On VoIP the ITU says, "The transmission of voice over circuits employing Internet protocol. In this report, VoIP is used to denote a type of IP telephone service where transmission is primarily over private, managed networks."
Therefore, Internet telephony works "primarily over public Internet" and VoIP works "primarily over private, managed networks." Fundamentals of these two "primarily" different technologies are crystal clear.
Internet telephony allows making phone calls from a personal computer (PC), which is connected with Internet. Such calls may terminate at another PC or a telephone. It is freely available with substandard quality. Broken voice, echo and frequent disconnection are the common ailments of such freebees.
Appropriate software and hardware have, however, mitigated these problems. The Internet service providers and cyber café operators offer such package in addition to their standard service. Internet telephony is also accessible from public call outlets.
Conventional overseas telecom infrastructure is not used while making the Internet telephony calls. Such bypass reduces operating cost and the users enjoy that concession. That's why the Internet telephony has been growing as a popular option of calling overseas.
Our telecom regulator should not be busy with reinventing the wheel in the name of setting the quality parameters. Being an ITU member-state, we should confidently follow the ITU guidelines on Internet telephony and VoIP. All the regulator needs to do is browsing the ITU's website (www.itu.int) and downloading the details.
Meanwhile, our ICT policymakers should understand that despite offering discounted phone calls, the VoIP technology functions quite differently than Internet telephony.
Long distance service providers roll out Internet protocol or IP-based network over the international voice circuits (via satellite or submarine cable). It abruptly reduces the international transmission cost as well as the tariff. Here is an example.
You dial 00 to make an overseas phone call from an ISD number. Then you dial the country and city codes followed by the desired telephone number. Your local telephone exchange forwards that overseas bound call to BTTB's gateway, which is called international trunk exchange (ITX).
BTTB's ITX sends your call to the recipient country's ITX through a satellite voice circuit. That ITX reads the city code and routes your call accordingly. Local exchange of that city sends the call to your desired number. The other end's telephone starts ringing.
The moment somebody answers the phone, both of you are connected with each other through a 64-kilobit per second (kbps) bandwidth of international voice circuit. This 64 kbps international bandwidth is the most expensive route of this entire journey of your international phone call and exactly this is where the VoIP technology fits in.
Instead of exclusively engaging the 64 kbps speech path for one subscriber, the VoIP technology divides that bandwidth and accommodates multiple subscribers. This is how the VoIP technology increases the callers' intake, which results the cost reduction of international voice circuit. It is just one advantage of VoIP.
This technology also sharply reduces the capital and operational costs of overseas telecom transmission facilities. Instead of deploying the expensive and proprietary ITX equipment, the operator procures standardised VoIP equipment from the fiercely competitive open market.
Furthermore, unlike the conventional ITX, the deployment of VoIP equipment does not require any bulky and expensive power supply and air conditioning plants. It reduces the workforce as well as the floor space of the international gateway establishment.
Such financial, technical and operational advantages have made VoIP the strategic option for long distance transmission applications. Therefore, only the long distance telecom service providers, hence BTTB, would apply VoIP technology.
According to national telecom policy of 1998, BTTB may enjoy the monopoly of international telephony until 2010. Unless the government allows early competition, BTTB remains the only potential VoIP provider in Bangladesh.
In fact, BTTB does not require any license to launch the cheaper calling service using VoIP technology. Any private operator will be equally exempted from so called license to use VoIP or any other transmission technology, as long as it is allowed to operate the international voice gateway.
But technology seldom respects the policy impediments and numerous unlicensed VoIP providers are mushrooming with prepaid international calling services with at least 70 per cent cheaper than BTTB's rate.
Connecting with own satellite-based data transfer gateways, they have converted the BTTB's local phone lines into informal overseas voice circuits. So far they have acquired more than tripled the BTTB's 3,333 international circuits. BTTB has been the pathetic loser in this guerrilla warfare of cross-boarder call trafficking.
Such covert operations are limited within the BTTB's urban network of Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet. The mobile telephone users have also joined this insurgency. Quality of this unregulated international voice service is no less than the regulated one.
But such informal services face occasional shutdown due to the government's isolated countermeasures. It deceives the customers, as there is no provision to recover the unused amount of the "illegally" purchased international prepaid calling cards.
This is a compelling evidence of the increasing demand for VoIP. BTTB should immediately start offering the bounty of VoIP and the government must introduce competition in the international voice gateway.
Neither the type nor the provider of technology matters to the consumers. All they want is to exploit the technology as long as it remains affordable. Commonsense is needed to realise this simple issue and our policymakers may not like it. But they should not lack it either, at least officially.
Abu Saeed Khan ([email protected]) is a telecom analyst.
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