Worldtel involved in \\\'illegal\\\' telephony

The country's oldest private PSTN operator Worldtel Bangladesh Limited is likely to lose spectrum for its alleged involvement in "illegal" telephony services, sources said.
Sources close to the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) said the Spectrum Management Division was asked to prepare a complete proposal and place it in the next commission meeting.
The commission also asked its Engineering and Operation Division to scrutinise the technical aspects of illegal call termination by the PSTN operator, a BTRC senior official told the FE.
The official noted that the Worldtel was found to be involved in illicit telephony services, a violation of terms and conditions of its operating licence.
The BTRC official said although radio frequency of the company has been closed since January 2015, the operator continues to provide illegal telephony services to its customers.
He said despite the closure of radio frequency since January this year, the operator had roughly 324, 502, 2 active clients.
However, Worldtel informed the regulator that it had roughly 12,000 clients during said the period.
The BTRC official said the regulator has verified the figures with the call history available with mobile operator Robi. And it found a big mismatch in information.
The senior official said the PSTN operator was very reluctant to share its functional information with the regulator.
"After several attempts, the operator shared misleading information," he said, adding that the regulator is now considering canceling its 1,800MHz band's spectrum allocation.
He said the commission would also ask other operators involved with such illegal call terminations to cancel connections with the GSM-based lone PSTN operator.
 Earlier, the prime minister's IT advisor Sajeeb Wazed Joy had directed the relevant authority to recover the unused spectrum.
BTRC said in the four months to May, a total of 32,45,022 Worldtel's clients made the calls through Robi, the lone cell-phone operator linked to its network. There is no agreement with Grameenphone, Banglaink and Airtel for providing such telephony services.
When contacted, company's managing director Nayeem Chowdhury said they were closely working with the regulator in this connection. "We hope it will be resolved soon," he added.
He, however, requested the telecom watchdog to support the relatively smaller operators so that they can survive the market competition.  
Worldtel is the lone PSTN (public switched telephone network) operator in Bangladesh to utilise GSM technology, which has the widest use worldwide in terms of wireless technology. It is the first private PSTN operator in the country.
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