THERE is not a single telephone company, mobile or land line, which stipulates that its connections cannot be used for a simultaneous 300 minutes between six and eleven every evening or that its subscribers may not call more than 50 or 100 numbers during that time. As long as the subscriber pays for the airtime, there should really be no problem. These however, are telltale indications that a certain connection is being used for internet telephony — VoIP or voice over internet protocol. Surveillance officials look out for numbers that are regularly busy during a certain period of the day and make unreasonably high number of calls to random numbers every day. Only a connection being utilised for internet telephony would need so much airtime. Connections at the public call offices or similar establishments have a somewhat different pattern.
   Internet telephony has been embroiled in a tangled web of multiple interests with different quarters vying to secure their objectives. There are several sides to the story. While the technology is still illegal, it remains an open secret that a number of establishments continue to terminate calls through internet telephony. On the surface, however, there is the drive against illegal operators that the military-backed interim government has begun since it came to office early January. Even about four years ago when the Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board began to crack down on VoIP operators, they could only manage to shut down operations exclusively run with land phone connections from the telephone board. The mobile operators, despite repeated requests and recommendations form the telephone board, would not act against its subscribers since they were not in any breach with their subscription contracts. Thus, only minor and relatively small VoIP operations were put out of commission.
   During that time, when the BNP-led alliance government was in power, quarters seated at the very heart of that regime were, however, allowed to carry on with their operations and law enforcers steered clear of any operations out of the Gulshan or Uttara exchanges of the telephone board. Operators hold that these quarters were the ones responsible for the crackdown on internet telephony, thereby eliminating their competition. The rationale for the state-owned telephone board was that these individuals were employing a technology that was not legal in Bangladesh and that it seriously ate into the board’s revenues. According to reports, international calls, contributing about 40 per cent of the board’s revenue, have fallen despite an increase in the subscriber base.
   VoIP operators have themselves said, almost a year ago, that the government was being deprived of at least $10 million per month in taxes because the technology is still illegal and there were strong lobby groups opposed to legalising the technology. This new technology was legalised in November 2003, after 11 attempts in two years by a former chairman of the telecom regulatory commission. One of the reasons that had often been cited by the government was that the state-owned telephone board’s revenues would suffer if the technology were to be legalised, which had been only a ruse to allow the influential quarters carry on with their operations without competition or the hassle of paying taxes.
   However, there was one major entrant in the field seizing the opportunity. The state-owned Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board became a VoIP operator from December 30 of that year with which it launched its new offer of reduced rates to a number of countries dialling with ‘012’. The board has added some more countries on that list only recently. For all practical purposes, the business became somewhat smoother and all operators, or those still in the business besides the cartel, of course, since they were immune to law and order during that regime, managed their business without any hassle from the government or the board since all parties were on the same plane — illegal VoIP operators — without a licence from the commission authorising their operations.
   While it was the board’s position that it was completely up to its discretion which technology it would employ, the regulatory commission held that since it had not even invited applications for such operations, internet telephony was still illegal. The point that the commission made was that the board was just another player in the market and it was the regulator’s responsibility to ensure a level playing field. Thus the telephone board would, in fact, be violating the law in the strictest sense of the word, although there were no moves on the part of the commission to restrict the board from carrying on with its operations, neither was there any move to control the private operators. The commission has typically taken a convenient attitude pleading public welfare and refrained from streamlining the illegal operations. Thus, with sporadic and random drives or crackdowns only the small fry have been affected with the big fish going scot-free.
   Even after the cabinet approved legalisation of internet telephony, the commission could not invite applications for aspiring operator because licence fees and number of licences remained a matter of concern for those already in the business. It had been suggested to the commission that the operations be restricted to only a specific number of operators. The fees, on the other hand, had not been settled since those very quarters would find it inconvenient to pay for the fees, which would be hefty if the regulatory commission’s proposal was anything to go by. According to a recent report, licences would cost between Tk 50 lakh and Tk 1 crore while yearly fees would be around Tk 20 lakh.
   The matter became further complicated when the telephone board and the ministry pointed out that all the voice traffic, as voice data is called by industry insiders, would have to be monitored to ensure that the operators pay their due taxes to the government. A proposal to allow routing through VSATs was rebuffed with the grave logic that the government would then have no control on the sector and would result in revenue losses. Consequently, the ministry, presumably at the behest of the telephone board to retain its domination of the telecom sector, added a condition stipulating that all VoIP traffic had to be routed through a common internet exchange which would preferably be operated and managed by the telephone board. Private operators, mainly internet service providers, many of whom where already in the business using their VSATs, were naturally rather disgruntled with this development. A high-powered ICT taskforce, headed by the then principal secretary to the Prime Minister’s Office, stipulated that the internet telephony in the private sector would not be allowed through VSATs when the Prime Minister’s Office asked it to submit another proposal. The private sector held that such an exchange would not actually ensure a level playing field for all the players since the telephone board, itself a player, would be running the exchange. The telecommunications regulatory commission, staffed with numerous BTTB officials, was also complacent with such development since their allegiance has typically been more to the telephone board rather than levelling the playing field.
   The legalisation of internet telephony has thus remained in limbo even after the cabinet agreed to it in principle. The formalities have yet to be taken care of and applications for licences yet to be invited. It has been pointed out a number of times that the technology would reduce call rates significantly paving the way for international call centres and video conferencing which would only further the national economy strengthening trade and commerce.
   It is common knowledge that besides the telephone board, mobile operators and the influential cartel, a number of internet service providers are in the business and secure a large chunk of their profits from their VoIP operations. That also holds true for the mobile operators. According to insiders, at least 10 per cent of the country’s entire mobile phone subscription is dedicated to internet telephony and one of the main thrusts for network expansion is also to ensure that overseas calls routed through the internet are terminated within the operators own ambit, which ensures the operators far more profit. They say internet telephony operations across the country yielded some Tk 40,000 crore annually for the mobile operators.
   Reports have it that with the entry of one operator within the last few years, the standard VoIP package prices dipped as did the international rates from seven cents a minute to only three cents a minute within a year of the operator’s entry into the market. It is also common knowledge among the operators that the mobile companies ‘recognise’ VoIP customers and are ready to provide them with dedicated services, including setting up dedicated base transceiver stations for the base of such operations. They also have separate packages for VoIP operations with fixed monthly charges regardless of the extent of use. Apparently, the standard package sells for some Tk 25,000-30,000 per month. The mobile operators’ knowledge and recognition of VoIP clients, although many hold that they are themselves involved in the business, can be surmised from a recent case filed by the Rapid Action Battalion against a leading mobile operator with the Ramna police station on February 12 when a raid at a building in Maghbazar found SIM cards of that company with ID hiding facility, which had to be approved and allowed by the operator provided that applicant meets all the required formalities for the request. While the two men running the operations there were arrested, nothing has so far been done about any of the four mobile private mobile operators.
   There are also no indications that the operations of the once-powerful cartel with strong links to the BNP-led regime as well as the Awami League regime have been stopped or suspended, it is still the comparatively smaller operations that end up paying the price. A taskforce is set to report on the status of internet telephony and will hopefully also make sensible recommendations about facilitating the private sector to come into the operation. It does not make sense to penalise the smaller operators and let go the larger ones, especially the corporations as well as the telephone board. That is not to say that all VoIP operations should be suspended. The toll would once again be on the public since a large portion of the international calls are routed through internet telephony and overseas communication would suffer greatly. In this regard, there must be clear guidelines as to what the government intends to do and when or how the technology would be legalised. Whatever the means and the criteria the government adopts, it must allow a reasonable number of operators to come into the business and continue to provide the service legally.
   After all, internet telephony only contributes to public welfare and saves them money and should thus be facilitated. The state-owned telephone operator’s argument that internet telephony robs the exchequer of thousands of crores does not hold since it itself is a player in the field and only losing its competitive edge in that case. With the telephone sector all deregulated, there is no reason why a certain technology in use in the rest of world should be restricted from private operators. But even if the state were to penalise those private operators causing the huge losses to the exchequer, it would not be the 20-odd VoIP operations that the Rapid Action Battalion has busted since the last week of December. One need not conduct raids at nooks and crannies at the dark of night to safeguard the board’s revenues. These small operators would account for only a minimal portion of a much larger pie that is shared among the cartels and corporations. Random and arbitrary arrests that the government has made so far appear to favour certain quarters while some others are dealt with stiffly. That is unfair.