Three interconnection exchanges (ICX) will be closed if they do not pay dues of around Tk 1.5 billion within January.
They are Cloud Tel Limited, Getco Telecommunications Limited and MM Communications Limited.
Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) recently sent a letter to the ICX operators alerting them over the Jan 31 deadline to pay the dues to the government.
The commission also fixed a daily ceiling of 25,000 minutes for international incoming calls for this period.
The letter, undersigned by BTRC official Md Mehfuz Bin Khaled, said the operators will also face legal action if they fail to meet the deadline.
A top BTRC official told bdnews24.com that Cloud Tel owes the government Tk 218.5 million, Getco Tk 882.5 million and MM Communications Tk 369.5 million.
On Jan 5, the BTRC set a daily ceiling of 100,000 minutes for international outgoing calls for these operators after they paid no heed to the regulators’ repeated warning to pay the dues, he said.
When someone abroad makes a call to Bangladesh, international gateway operators switch them to the ICX operators who then connect the call to the related phone operator.
The rates for international calls vary.
ICX operators also connect domestic calls from one operator to another. They get Tk 0.04 per minute and pay 65.75 percent tax for these calls.
There are 26 ICX operators in Bangladesh now. Of them, 23 received licences in 2012.
The operators have been complaining about the issuance of ‘so many’ licences without evaluating the market.
Source: bdnews24