Around 350 million minutes of daily calls that are generated on six mobile operators’ own network (on-net) – are completely out of the government’s monitoring system, a BTRC paper claims.
The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) placed the paper before a meeting of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology Ministry yesterday, also acknowledging that the government had no way of monitoring the actual number of daily calls and had to rely on the numbers provided by the operators.
Meeting sources told the Dhaka Tribune that some extent of monitoring system was maintained as all the incoming and outgoing international calls along with inter-operator calls were being terminated through known channels, but the BTRC had no idea about the volume of intra-operator calls.
With such a large number of call minutes unmonitored, the government is reportedly denied a large amount of revenue. The operators need to share 5.5% of their total revenue to the government, as well as a 15% VAT.
In May 2013, the BTRC initiated a process to establish a Centralised Monitoring System (CMS) and called a tender in this regard; however, the process to set up the system is yet to be completed. Now, the parliamentary watchdog has recommended the telecom regulator to float a fresh tender on CMS.
“We know that mobile and landphone operators are currently out of the monitoring system and the committee recommends the government to establish a tight monitoring system,” Imran Ahmed, chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Telecom Ministry told the Dhaka Tribune after the meeting.
“Though the BTRC called a tender, it is already disputed. That is why we recommended them to go for a fresh tender process,” he added.
Earlier, after the tender process was completed, five companies were asked to submit Request for Proposal (RFP); the opening of the Technical Proposal was done in May this year. One of the companies – N-Soft – reportedly got the highest number and offered the lowest prices.
As the BTRC had failed to award the work order in such a long time, the matter was now under the consideration of the Central Procurement Technical Unit.
Sources at the meeting said discussion was also held on taking expert opinion on assessing which system – CMS or Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) – would be more effective to stop illegal VoIP activities.
The parliamentary watchdog also suggested to the ministry to form a technical audit team to ensure transparency and accountability for all its affiliated bodies and agencies.
The committee also recommended telecom and ICT-related public organisations to finalise a plan for the next four years and review the achievements of the past year, before submitting it to the watchdog before the first week of January.
Committee members, State Minister for Information and Communication Technology Zunaid Ahmed Palak, and lawmakers Mouazzem Hossain Ratan and Kazi Firoz Rashid attended the meeting.
Source: http://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2014/dec/18/btrc-350-million-minutes-daily-calls-unmonitored
