Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission will soon issue new directives for companies that were recently given licences to operate as telecommunication gateways.
The move is an attempt to ensure that the sector’s status quo is not jeopardised due to the influx of a large number of new operators that got licences on April 12, its chief Zia Ahmed told the news agency.
So the regulators are moving to fix the ceiling of maximum number of calls at a time and make ‘modern’ billing methods compulsory.
He said that their meetings with the new and old operators regarding various operational aspects including call and revenue sharing had, however, failed to yield any decisions.
The BTRC was forced to hand out International Gateway permits to 22 operators, Interconnection Exchange to 22 more and International Internet Gateway to 34 organisations on April 12 following a ministerial decision.
The regulator was against handing out so many licences even when the plan was on the drawing board, along with older operators in the sector, who claimed that it would upset the market’s stability.
The companies that were awarded licences on April 12 will have to install ‘modern’ billing system. Otherwise, they shall not be allowed to import their equipment, the BTRC chief said.
The move, making compulsory the integration of Call Data Records analysers to their systems is a bid to prevent illegal calls and allow easy verification of call records, he added.
BTRC would also set a ceiling for the number of calls at a time. Organisations that recently got IGW permits would be allowed to handle 5,000 calls at a time and would be given permits for equipment only of that range.
The three older IGW operators were allowed to handle 20,000 calls at a time.
Also, the new ICXs would be allowed 400 E1 (E1 allows interconnecting 30 calls) connections at a time allowing a total of 12,000 calls to be interconnected, a-third of what the older operators were allowed (36,000 connections).
These steps would also lower equipment import costs considerably, Zia Ahmed pointed out.
Currently, three ICXs (BTCL, GETCO and M&H) are handling the interconnections between various voice operators. They are connected to four IGWs for routing international calls, consisting of Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited, Mir Telecom, Novotel and Bangla Track.