Bangladesh News

Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) yesterday sought explanation from the country’s largest telecom company Garmeenphone (GP) as to why its license should not be cancelled or suspended on charges of violating the terms of its license agreement.

According to the telecom watchdog show cause notice, Grameenphone will have to respond within the next 30 days, otherwise BTRC might cancel or suspend the leading telecom operator’s activities.

BTRC Chairman Maj Gen (retd) Manzurul Alam confirmed the issuance of the notice.

Talking to The Daily Star a GP spokesperson said, “Yes, we have received the notice. We are fully cooperating with the authority in this regard. We will also response accordingly.”

The telecom watchdog issued the notice following a recent revelation by it of GP’s involvement in illegal VoIP (voice over internet protocol) operation and illegal international call termination.

BTRC filed a case against 10 former and in service high officials of GP including two former CEOs, accusing them of being involved in the illegal activities.

Grameenphone, AccessTel, a local internet service provider, and Malaysia-based international call carrier DiGi Telecommunications are also accused in the case.

BTRC filed the case with Gulshan police station on January 16.

According to the first information report (FIR), the implicated former GP officials are ex-CEOs of the company Erik Aas and Ola Ree, former technical director Thor Randhaug, former chief technical officer Yogesh Sanjeev Malik, and former sales and marketing director Mehboob Chowdhury.

The in service accused GP officials are Khalid Hasan, director of regulatory and corporate affairs, Md Shafiqul Islam, chief technical officer, Kafil HS Muyeed, director of new business, Md Arif Al Islam, director of finance, and Espen Wiig Warendroph, head of revenue assurance.

The January 16 case was a follow-up of an 8-day long Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) raid, which started on December 6, 2007, on the GP head office in Gulshan of the capital. The raid recovered a large number of illegal VoIP equipment.

During the raid Rab officials claimed that they had evidence of GP providing VoIP equipment to AccessTel to run an illegal call termination business. The law enforcers found four circuits of E1 technology that connected the GP lines with AccessTel’s.

DiGi Telecommunications was accused as it has a bilateral deal with GP to terminate the latter’s international calls. Norway-based Telenor, the major stakeholder of Grameenphone, is also a shareholder of Digi Telecommunications.

BTRC sources said GP terminated international calls through DiGi Tel. GP’s earnings from international calls are deposited in Webstein Bank in Singapore. But a considerable amount of the money might have been siphoned off from the bank instead of its dispatch to Bangladesh, apprehends BTRC.

However, Grameenphone will launch an independent external audit of the company’s alleged involvement in illegal international call termination in order to get to the bottom of the scandal that has rocked the country’s telecom sector.

The move comes following a request from Grameenphone’s major owner Telenor, although GP has yet to appoint the external auditor.

In a statement to The Daily Star yesterday Esben Tuman, communications director of Telenor Asia, said, “Actions like the ones alleged in the BTRC filing are definitely not in line with Telenor’s guidelines and codes of conduct.”

“In order to look into this matter in a thorough manner, Telenor brought this topic to Grameenphone’s board of directors in December 2007, and the board decided to initiate an independent external audit,” the statement said.

It was revealed on Sunday that BTRC had filed a case against 10 former and in service high officials of Grameenphone including two former CEOs on January 16, accusing them of being involved in illegal VoIP operation and illegal international call termination.

“The case is still under investigation, and we will have to see the outcome of the Bangladeshi authorities’ investigation as well as the external audit initiated by Telenor and Grameenphone’s board of directors before planning and implementing our actions,” the Telenor statement said.