The government will reward citizens providing information on illegal Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) operations.
A circular by the Post and Telecommunication Division declared that rewards up to Tk 100,000 will be given for information on those running illegal VoIP operations.
The circular informed that information can be given directly to the telecommunications secretary or to the chief of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC).
The identities of those providing information will not be disclosed.
On the other hand, the IGW Operators Forum (IOF) has declared up to Tk. 5 lakh rewards on tipping off illegal VoIP businesses. A notice was given in the form of press release declaring the rewards.
A high official in the ministry said that recently legal international calls have dipped as the call rate has been made $.0.02 from the previous $0.015 by the IGW.
Later on, the Post and Telecommunication Minister Tarana Halim held multiple meetings with BTRC officials and declared the rewards.
According to BTRC statistics, currently around 9 to 9.5 crore minutes of legal international calls are made and on the other hand, 11 to 11.5 crore illegal ones are made.
Last year, BTRC scrutinized and reduced the ‘Incoming Call Termination Rate’ in international communications and set new directives between the gateways and revenue collection bodies.
In case of international calls, the rate of $0.03 was lowered to $0.015 last year.
Of the total revenue incomes, 40% goes to BTRC, 20% to IGW, 17.5% to Inter Connection Exchange (ICEx) and 22.5% to the customer services or the Access Network Services (ANS).
Source: Ittefaq