The government is examining the proposal of the telecom ministry to halve the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) call rate from the existing US$0.3 cents considering the negative impact on revenue earning from the sector.
Sources said two issues are being taken into strong consideration - it will cut government revenue to around Tk11 billion; and the possibility of increasing the VoIP call number in a legal way to offset the fall in revenue earning, according to the source.
As per the ministry's calculations, the legal number of calls will have to reach nearly 10 million a day, instead of current trend of 4.5 million, to earn the same amount of revenue from the sector.
Currently, some 18 International Gateway (IGW) operators out of 29 are allowed to terminate VoIP call. The rest 11 IGW operators' operation was either suspended or licence cancelled for nonpayment of dues to the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC).
However, total call termination number in the country will be around 14 million a day as per the data of the international carriers.
Examining the VoIP call rate of some Asian countries, the telecom ministry found that the Bangladesh is offering one of the lowest call rates after India. The VoIP call rate in India is US$0.1 cent while 0.6 cents in Thailand and Singapore, 0.11 cents in Philippine, 0.9 cents in Sri Lanka and 0.85 cents.
Besides, telecom ministry's proposal will lead to reduction of revenue sharing part with the telecom regulator from 51.75 per cent to 40 per cent.
Telecom secretary Abubakar Siddique himself expressed doubt about raising the legal call number after reduction of the international incoming Internet Protocol (IP) call rate.
The secretary further said the illegal VoIP businessmen are very advanced technically. That is why they may not comply with the government decision for maximising their profit from the sector.
Mr Siddique also said the number of legal calls will have to reach almost 10 million for keeping government revenue earning same from the sector.
He mentioned that after receiving the approval from finance division, the new call rate will be imposed for six months on an experimental basis to assess the legal call number.
Almost the same comment was echoed by a VoIP businessman. He informed the FE that the government's expectation of increasing legal call ratio will be tough as it will not bring extra benefit for them.
Meanwhile, some stakeholders appreciated the initiative of the telecom ministry and expressed hope that it is will lead to a surge in the number of legal VoIP calls.
At present, the IGW operators share 20 per cent of their total revenue income with the mobile phone operators and 13.25 per cent with the Interconnection Exchange (ICX) operators in addition to 51.75 per cent with the BTRC.
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