The telecom regulator has placed a cap on daily call-termination volumeof three interconnection exchange (ICX) operators as their outstanding dues mounted to more than Taka 150 crore.
The regulator also cautioned the operators to shut their operations if they failed to pay theoutstanding dues by January 31, said officials. To this end, the regulator-Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) — has sent letters to ICX operators Cloud Tel Limited, Getco Telecommunications Limited and M M communications Limited, fixing their daily call termination limit to maximum 25,000 minutes.
BTRC also asked the International Gateway (IGW) operators to make the directive effective immediately.
The letter issued by M Mehfuz Bin Khaled, Senior Assistant Director of Engineering and Operation Division at BTRC, on Thursday said: “If the operators failed to make the payment by January 31, legal measures would be taken against them alongside shutting down their operation.”
A high official of the regulator told BSS that Cloud Tel owed BTRC Taka 21.85 crore while the amount of dues of Getco Telecommunication stood at Taka 88.25 crore and of M M Communication Taka 36.95 crore. “The regulator has been corresponding with the ICX operators since long to realize the outstanding dues, but they didn’t show any interest to make the payment,” said the official.
ICX is routing all international incoming calls received from International Gateway (IGW) and terminates up to the operator for both mobile and fixed lines. It is also routing all international outgoing calls received from the operator and terminates up to IGW as well as routing all inter-operator calls within the country for both mobile and fixed lines.
At present there are 26 ICX operators in Bangladesh and of them 23 received licenses in 2012.
During the call termination, BTRC gets 40 per cent of the total revenue while 20 per cent goes toIGW operator, 17.5 per cent to ICX operator and the remaining 22.5 per cent goes to access network service (ANS) operator.
