Telecommunications providers Grameenphone (News - Alert), Banglalink, and Robi recently wrote a letter to the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, urging it to crack down on Teletalk for allowing mobile users to make illegal international VoIP calls.
According to The Daily Star, executives from the three companies wrote to the BTRC on June 29. They stated that the call duration from Teletalk to other providers indicates that Teletalk is not blocking SIMs in a manner the BTRC specifies.
The letter says the call duration from Teletalk to Grameenphone, Banglalink, and Robi last an average of 5.48 minutes, 4.4 minutes, and 5.16 minutes respectively. In contrast, the average duration from Grameenphone to Banglalink is 1.3 minutes, and the average between Grameenphone and Robi is 1.29 minutes.
The durations the companies quote are obviously significantly shorter between themselves than between Teletalk and their networks. The BTRC directive with regard to this issue is reportedly for telecommunications companies to prevent users from making international VoIP calls using SIM boxes. When users make calls in this manner, the recipient operator sees a call as being local. This bypasses international gateways and interconnection exchanges, and at that point it becomes illegal.
In addition, The Daily Star notes, "Once a call is bypassed, the government, gateways and exchanges do not get any revenue out of it."
A recent BTRC report showed that callers used 38,613 Teletalk SIMs to make such calls between May 28 and June 27 this year – a fact the telecoms noted in their letter to the BTRC. The second highest amount came from telecom Airtel (News - Alert) at 6,080 SIMs, followed by Robi, Banglalink, and Grameenphone at 1,217 SIMs, 511 SIMs, and 427 SIMs respectively.
BTRC Telecom Secretary Abubakar Siddique said the organization, upon finding evidence that Teletalk is allowing illegal VoIP calls, will take action against those responsible.
Edited by Alisen Downey