Wednesday, September 8, 2010

A little about VoIP in Bangladesh




The Bangladesh Government has planned to issue more than 3,500 new VoIP licenses to the local Bangladeshi entrepreneurs to handle international calls from and to Bangladesh through VoIP Technology (Voice over Internet Protocol). Handling of international calls for local entrepreneurs is illegal under the existing Law of Bangladesh Govt.


The NEWS of new VoIP license has become old but the process has not started yet.

Telecom Minister Rajiuddin Ahmed Raju said in a press meeting that, these new license will be issued within few months after the Telecom Regulatory Act 2010 gets parliament’s nod.

If this process starts, it will help to bring all illegal and legal VoIP operators under a legal framework. At present lots of people are involved in illegal VoIP business in Bangladesh.

The government has already canceled 5 Land Phone operators license due to involving in illegal international call termination. These are Dhaka Phone, RanksTel, National Phone, Peoples Tel and WorldTel. More than 20 license of local ISP (Internet Service Provider) has also been cancelled due to the same reason.

If this happens than it will be possible for anyone to do VoIP business under the legal framework at affordable costs. The maximum costs of license would be not more than 5 lacs BDT.

More than 60 million minutes of international incoming calls are handling daily from Bangladesh and more than 20-25 % of these calls are routing illegally by some illegal VoIP providers in Bangladesh.

People are getting involved in the illegal VoIP call handling business because this has become a profitable business as the technology offers international call charges much lower than legal calls.

A previous NEW was: “A move is underway to bring illegal VoIP (voice over internet protocol) under a legal framework by renting out E1 connections to the operators”.

International call termination through E1 devices in illegal in Bangladesh. This device is used to transmission of Voice, Data and Graphics at high speed.

BTRC (Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission) charges Tk 1.2 lakh for each E1 connection which has 30 port to handle 30 call at a time.

Zia Ahmed - Chairman of BTRC said - “The parliamentary body is looking for a suitable way to legalise international call termination through VoIP. The committee has asked BTRC to provide a report on E1 rental,”.

Using E1 devices illegal VoIP operators charges around 1.65 cents per minute incoming call in Bangladesh but the legal call handlers charges 3 cents per minute.


reference: voipbangladesh.com

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