Telecom prospect bright: Govt likely to earn Tk 1500 cr revenue (Bangladesh)

Staff Reporter

Bangladesh Government would earn Tk 1500 crore revenue annually if the licensed six telecom companies could work properly.Major General Manzurul Alam, Chairman of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), yesterday said this while inaugurating the opening ceremony of Interconnection Exchange (ICX) of GETCO Telecommunications Ltd.The companies are Mir Telecom, Novotel and Bangla Trac Ltd providing International Gateway (IGW), M&H Telecom and GETCO providing Interconnection Exchange (ICX) and Mango Teleservice providing International Internet Gatway (IIG).Besides, Manzurul Alam on the day inaugurated ICX of M&H Telecom and International Gateway (IGW) of Novotel Ltd and Bangla Trac Communications Ltd.

Any international or national call is first caught by IGW then it is transferred to the ICX from where both mobile and land phone subscribers are connected now through this telecommunication technology.

Manzurul Alam said, the operation of the IGW and ICX will go a long way to put an end to illegal VOIP business as a result government will earn Tk 1500 crore annually. Because of high speed connection and low noise in telecommunication the number of calls both national and international would increase which in turn help to earn huge revenue to the government he said."As the private companies are operating as medium of transit of international and national call, the monopoly business of some big companies will stop", Manzurul Alam said and added, "BTRC facilitates level playing field for all companies irrespective of big and small companies through awarding license to the companies."He also said the responsibility of BTRC is to ensure proper use of each penny of the public.

The BTRC Chairman said the ICX operation is now limited in five districts and it will expand to other districts gradually. "Within next 3-5 years, there will be revolution in the telecommunication sector,"KM Khaled, Managing Director of GETCO said, apart from the Dhaka ICX, GETCO had also set up ICX at Sylhet and Bogra to provide nation-wide service. The ICX is designed to carry daily traffic of five million minutes of international traffic and 17 million minutes per day of inter-operator traffic.The exchange is also designed to carry one-third of international and inter operator traffic and 50 per cent traffic at Bogra and Sylhet. The switch is capable of handiling a total of 16 million busy hour call attempts (BHCA).Arifur Rahman, Chief Executive of M&H Telecom Ltd, in his keynote papers said that the ICX technology would help to prevent mobile hijacking, provide inter operator connectivity and international connectivity and reduce problems like busyness problem of network. He also said this technology would provide a subscriber using of same number but getting facilities of any other operators.

Manzurul Alam inaugurated IGW of Mir Telecom and International Internet Gateway (IIG) of Mango Teleservice on last Thursday