The cabinet has approved the draft of a new policy for further opening up the long distance telecommunications sector. Government is expecting that will bring down costs of international calls. According to the draft International Long Distance Telecommunications Service Policy 2010' from now on, the telecom ministry will be responsible to award the licenses and fix tariffs for international call terminations.

Previously the Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC) was authorized for new licensing and fixing the tariff. Previously the country's international gateway was controlled by the state-owned BTTB, now the BTCL.

But Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission will give all other kind of telecom licensing and also it’s their jurisdiction to fix the price for other services.

The cabinet meeting lead by Sheikh Hasina approved the new policy on Sunday, which also gave the final nod to the Bangladesh Telecommunications (Amendment) Bill 2010.

The past caretaker government on 2008 awarded VoIP licenses to five companies. This five companies are now mainly responsible for handling international voice calls along with the state-run BTCL. According to the license aggriment with this 5 company, they have to pay tariffs of over 50 percent to the government, making illegal VoIP trade, offering international calls at low charges, a lucrative business.

Last year parliamentary standing committee on the telecoms ministry recommended further opening up of VoIP to stop illegal activity. The new revised policy is expected to further open up legal Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) operations and increase government revenue from the telecom sector.

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Source:Bdbangla-Report
Key words: Voip, Telecommunications, Ip Phone, ip phone systems,voice over ip phone,ip phone pbx, Rangs Tel Voip, Dhaka Phone, WorldTel, National Telecom

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