Illegal VoIP business
BTRC comes hard on telcos
42,150 SIM cards used for illegal VoIP operation seized
Staff Reporter, Dhaka
The Bangladesh Tele-communication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) has found negligence of operators in preventing the illegal voice over internet protocol (VoIP) business.
Md Jahurul Haque, acting chairman of the telecom watchdog, yesterday said the regulator would take strict action against the operators in this regard, if needed.
He was speaking at a press conference at his office.
The press meet was arranged to inform the media that separate raids were conducted against the illegal VOIP business from October 14 to November 1 in Dhaka and Chattogram.
Haque said the BTRC had talked about the illegal VoIP business at another press conference about a month ago. But the number of illegal VoIP calls had not reduced since then, he added.
BTRC acting chairman said BTRC did not hold the press conference to blame the operators. But they (operators) have the responsibility to keep monitoring their SIMs to find where those are going. Keep your distributors under vigilance. Otherwise, BTRC would be compelled to enforce law.
Brigadier General Md Mustafa Kamal Md Mustafa Kamal, director general of the Engineering Operations Division of the BTRC, said the government was losing Tk. 2,300 crore annually due to the illegal VoIP business.
He also said militants were getting involved in this business to promote terror-financing. So, the BTRC is considering to treat the matter as a formal case as well as a criminal case involving money laundering, he added.
The BTRC and RAB in a joint drive seized 42,000 SIM cards, used for illegally routing international calls through VoIP, during separate raids in the capital and the port city in October. They also seized illegal VoIP equipment worth Tk.1.23 crore. They arrested 24 people and sued them under the Telecommuni-cations Act 2011.
Among the SIMs, 16,812 were of Robi, 15,949 of Teletalk, 6,176 of Banglalink and 3,223 of Grameen-phone, said Haque.
The seizure of the SIM cards would save the loss of revenue of over Tk. 867 crore annually, he added.
In the press conference, the RAB said the mobile operators had to take responsibility in as their SIMs has been found.
Representatives of mobile operators, however, claim that they have no affiliation with the illegal VoIP business. The Grameenphone representative said that there were no errors from its side.
The Robi representative said that a VoIP call deprived the operators of Tk. 0.30 per minute. Why would the operators sponsor the loss? The real culprits should be brought to book rather than putting the blame on the operators, he added.
The Banglalink representative said: We are trying our best. But the operators cannot monitor where the SIMs are being used after being sold to customers.
The Teletalk representative said that they faced different problems because of too few distributor channels.
The BTRC chairman said the operators should follow the rules of even after selling their SIMs. He expressed wonder as to why the operators were unable to seize their SIMs. The operators should be accountable for this to the BTRC, he added.
Were not saying that the operators are involved. But they will have to monitor the distributors more often. Only then can we get rid of this illegal call business, Haque said.
