Drive against ISP, PSTN for illegal VoIP use starts

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M Azizur Rahman
The telecom regulator has launched a special drive against internet service providers (ISPs) and land phone operators illegally transferring millions of dollars worth of foreign calls using VoIP technology, officials said.
"Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC) launched the fresh drive recently to detect the ISPs and public switched telephone network (PSTN) operators using VoIP illegally," BTRC spokesman Abbas Faruq told the FE Saturday.
He also said: "The drive against the biggies - the mobile phone operators - will continue."
The BTRC's latest hunt against the ISPs and PSTNs was launched weeks after detecting a local ISP involved in illegally transferring foreign calls.
In its drive against the illegal voice over internet protocol (VoIP) users, the BTRC has already lodged a number of cases against the private mobile phone operators.
The telecom regulator has so far fined the country's private telecom operators Tk 6.15 billion for illegally terminating international calls to Bangladesh.
Telecom ministry sources said foreign call transfer is a restricted service under the country's telecommunication laws 2001. Only the state-owned BTTB can transfer millions of foreign calls routed to the country.
A telecom company gets a slice of the tariff, currently ranges between Tk1.40 taka and Tk6.00 per minute if it allows its network to transfer foreign call in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh with over five million people living abroad receives over 25 million minutes of foreign calls a day, making call-transfer a huge cash cow for telecom companies.
Telecom officials said the market for foreign call transfer is about Tk 20.00 billion a year, growing about 15 per cent, the official of the Posts and Telecommunication Ministry said.
When contacted president of the Internet Service Providers' Association of Bangladesh (ISPAB) Abdus Salam, however, welcomed the BTRC's latest drive against the ISPs and PSTNs to check illegal VoIP operations and save huge foreign currencies.
The ISPs involved with illegal VoIP operations must be punished, he said categorically supporting the commission's drive.