Tk 7.5 per min calls to 15 more countries

The Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board will introduce its flat international call rate of Tk 7.5 per minute to 15 more countries from April 1.

Earlier on December 2003, the board first introduced the flat rate of Tk 7.5 per minute for making calls to ten countries that consisted of the United States, Canada, England, France, Italy, Germany, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong.

The state-owned land phone operator in a statement on Wednesday said the subscribers having international subscriber’s dialling and nation-wide dialling facilities would enjoy the reduced tariff using code number '012' for making calls to China, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Brunei, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemburg, Ireland, Spain, Greece and Austria.

Excepting China, South Korea, Thailand and Brunei, the board, however, would charge Tk 18 per minute for making calls to mobile phones of the remaining 11 countries

GP launches new bill payment system

The GrameenPhone Ltd (GP) introduces an electronic bill payment system through FlexiLoad, for its post-Paid subscribers from today.

From now GrameenPhone’s post- paid subscribers will be able to pay their bills with any amount starting from Tk 150 to Tk 50, 000 at any time of the day.

To pay GP post-paid bill through this system, a subscriber only needs to visit the nearest GrameenPhone authorized FlexiLoad retail outlets or points of sale with the FlexiLoad post-paid sign. After successful completion of the payment, both the subscriber and the retailer will receive a confirmation SMS.

Post-paid subscribers of GrameenPhone namely GP Regular, GP National, Anytime 500 and Business Solutions subscribers will enjoy this FlexiLoad service.

Introduction of this system will make the bill payment easy and hassle-free. The subscribers will not face any queue or time barrier while paying bill.

GrameenPhone opens subscriber info office

The largest mobile operator in Bangladesh, GrameenPhone, recently launched a digital data entry of its subscribers under the new registration programme.

Data entry from the registration forms filled in by subscribers has started in the new office at Basundhara City on Panthapath equipped with 600 computers from mid- March.

All the bits of information on a subscriber, according to the registration form, are stored in the main server.

GrameenPhone information department general manager Syed Yamin Bakht said the decision on the beginning of re-registration would be made soon as the process needed to be completed by May as directed by the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission.

New subscribers will need to fill in the registration forms, designed by the regulatory commission, available with 600 GrameenPhone service desks spanning 61 districts.

Eight major customer centres in six cities control the service desks and collect all forms of the subscribers. The forms are sent to the office at Basundhara City for data entry. The hard copies are stored in the operator’s warehouse at Tejgaon.

Sources said the operator, which has about five million subscribers, has 1,400 people with it across Bangladesh.

GrameenPhone, which had a subscriber base of 2.4 million in December 2004, doubled the number to five million covering 60 per cent of the market, said Syed Yamin Bakht.

11 digits in GP numbers from April 2nd week

All GrameenPhone (GP) mobile phone numbers will change to 11-digit series from the second week of April, sources in GrameenPhone said. The GP SMS service centre number will also be change to an 11- digit number. A separate digit will be added after the GrameenPhone prefix 017 while the other digits will remain unchanged. The additional digit after the prefix 017 for all existing GrameenPhone subscribers will be ‘1’. The GP SMS service centre number will be change from +880170000600 to +8801700000600.

Flat call charge for 15 more countries okayed

** New rate to come into effect by a week

The finance ministry has approved a Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board proposal for extension of flat international call rate of Tk 7.5 per minute to 15 more countries.
The board officials on Wednesday said the new rate was likely to be introduced by a week on completion of necessary formalities. The flat rate is currently available for 10 countries.
Sources in the finance ministry said the finance and planning minister, M Saifur Rahman, had approved the economy overseas call rate on March 9, and the decision was notified to the post and telecommunications ministry on Monday.
The state-owned land phone operator in January placed a proposal to the telecom ministry for introduction of the flat rate for making calls to China, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Brunei, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemburg, Ireland, Spain, Greece and Austria. The telecom ministry later forwarded the proposal to the finance ministry.
The board currently charges Tk 24 and Tk 18 per minute respectively during the peak and off-peak hours for making calls to China, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Brunei, and Tk 27 and Tk 21 per minute respectively during the peak and off-peak hours for the rest of the proposed countries.

Excluding China, South Korea, Thailand and Brunei, the board, however, proposed Tk 18 as charge per minute for making calls to the mobile phones of the remaining 11 countries.
Earlier, on December 30, 2003, the board first introduced the flat rate of Tk 7.5 per minute for making calls to ten countries: the United States, Canada, England, France, Italy, Germany, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong.
The board subscribers having ISD (international subscriber’s dialling) and NWD (nation-wide dialling) telephones will enjoy the reduced tariff.

The NWD telephone users will be able to make ISD calls at the reduced rate through direct dialling by using a new code ‘012’, said a board engineer adding that one can also make calls to those countries by using the existing ‘00’ code.

The board plans to expand the economy rate ISD call facilities to more countries as it loses crores of revenue from international calls due to illegal internet telephony, which is also referred to as Voice over Internet Protocol, officials said.
Besides, the board got a very positive response after introducing the flat rate to 10 countries and revenue from calls to those countries rose sharply, they added.

According to the board statistics, the board, before the introduction of economy ISD rate, on an average would earn about Tk 8.27 crore a month from the 10 countries, but the revenue earning rose to about Tk 9.4 crore after the introduction of the flat rate.

'The reduced rate will help the board to regain some of its lost revenue as around 40 per cent of its revenue comes from overseas calls,' said a top official.
According to a study of the board, the government loses around Tk 1,000 crore each year because of the internet telephony.

Govt decides on open licensing for VoIP operation

The government has decided to provide the Voice over Internet Protocol operation licence to the private sector through open licensing system.

Sources in the Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission have said the government had decided last year to go for open licensing system for VoIP operations and finalised the terms and conditions in this regard.

'Under the open licensing system, a company with sound financial strength could obtain a licence from the commission after fulfilling certain criteria,' said a top official of the regulatory commission on Tuesday.

The licence will initially be provided for five years and may be renewed if the operator’s performance is satisfactory, said the official.

Earlier, the government had fixed Tk 50 lakh and Tk 50 thousand as the highest and lowest licence fees for VoIP operation licence on the basis of the bandwidth use.

The government fixed eight bandwidth slabs and an operator would have to pay Tk 50 thousand for the licence of using the bandwidth capacity of 64kbps, the lowest slab, and Tk 50 lakh for the bandwidth capacity of STM 4, the highest slab.

The BTRC officials, however, said although the government had already fixed the licence fees and terms and conditions for VoIP operation, it would not start giving the licences before the establishment of common exchange platforms.

The government earlier planned to set up common exchange platforms in four places — Dhaka, Chittagong, Sylhet and Bogra — to monitor the voice traffic data and ensure revenue earning from the VoIP operators.

The platforms will be established at a cost of Tk 30 crore.
The Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board, which will manage the platforms, floated a tender in January for setting up the platform in Dhaka initially.

VoIP, also known as internet telephony, is a technology for transmitting voice calls over
the internet in digital packets rather than over circuit of the public-switched telephone network.

The cabinet on November 10, 2003 approved VoIP and asked the telecom regula-tory body to open the sector soon for making overseas calls cheaper.

Meanwhile, some people have earned windfalls from illegal VoIP operations, though punishable under the Bangladesh Telecommunications Act 2001, depriving the government of revenue amounting to around Tk 1,000 crore a year, according to the regulatory commission.