Saturday, December 19th, 2009Rab personnel arrested two people including an executive of Dhaka Phone Thursday night in connection with running illegal Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) business. They also seized some equipment from an office and a BTS room of Dhaka Phone in the city.Golam Mostofa and Dhaka Phone executive Russell Mahmud were placed on remand after Khilkhet police produced them before a court seeking remand for five days each.BTRC Junior Consultant Kawsar Ahmed had filed a case with Khilkhet Police Station Thursday night in this connection.The seized equipment include four media converters, two dealing switches, two ethernet switches, one 24-port Quintum, one ...
(read more) Monday, November 12th, 2007The country's telecom watchdog fined Aktel Tk 145 crore for its involvement in the illegal use of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) or call termination business.Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) in a press release said during recent raids by the law enforces, Aktel's involvement in illegal call termination business was ascertained.Talking to The Daily Star, BTRC Chairman Maj Gen (retd) Manzurul Alam said, "Aktel has already paid Tk 72.50 crore to the national exchequer."Telekom Malaysia International Bangladesh (TMIB) is the 70 percent stakeholder of Aktel.Aktel is not alone in paying the government compensation. Earlier, country's largest mobile phone ...
(read more) Sunday, April 8th, 2007The government is likely to impose financial penalties and regulatory punishment on mobile phone companies for their involvement in illegal VoIP operation which has deprived the nation of huge tax and revenue for several years, telecoms ministry sources said.Beginning from January, the Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) has busted several dozen illegal VoIP operations and some of these surprisingly lead directly or indirectly to GrameenPhone (GP), Aktel and Banglalink. Further investigations are going on against other phone companies.The government has already filed cases against the GP, Aktel and Banglalink for illegal VoIP operation.These operations have deprived the national exchequer ...
(read more) Tuesday, March 6th, 2007A high-powered government committee on legalising voice over internet protocol (VoIP) yesterday recommended allowing VoIP licence to all operators, including the providers of mobile, land phone and internet services.The committee proposed four government common platforms for overseas telephony gateway, committee member and Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) General Manager (security and surveillanceo) Lt Col Zia Safdar told reporters.Briefing newsmen at his office after submitting the recommendations to the government, he said the committee also recommended allowing private operators, especially the local companies, to develop more common platforms.The seven-member technical committee headed by Saiful Islam, professor of electrical and electronic ...
(read more) Saturday, February 10th, 2007A few foreign mobile phone operators, which take out profits of hundreds of millions of dollars from Bangladesh each year, have been largely supporting the phenomenally growing illegal VoIP business in the country.Quoting a confidential study of a top international phone company, an industry insider said the mobile operators' billing patterns indicate that there is a market of 2.5 billion paid minutes in only mobile termination per year.With 90 percent VoIP (voice over internet protocol) traffic terminating on mobile networks, the mobile companies make at least 66 paisa per minute from each call. The remaining calls are terminated through the ...
(read more) Wednesday, February 7th, 2007The joint forces seized over six lakh sacks of spurious and date-expired fertiliser and adulterated pesticides and sealed off two factories and 14 warehouses during separate raids across the country yesterday. Besides, the Rapid Action Battalion (Rab-11) seized a huge amount of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and telecommunication equipments in Munshiganj.In Pabna, the joint forces seized a huge haul of spurious and date-expired fertilisers during a raid at Nagarbari fertiliser market, the largest market in the northern part of the country, reports our correspondent from Pabna. Some six lakh sacks of sub-standard fertiliser were seized, which would have fetched ...
(read more) Thursday, October 12th, 2006After sitting idle for nearly three years on licensing internet telephony, Bangladesh Telecom Regulatory Commission (BTRC) is now hurrying award of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) licences without ensuring first a common platform for VoIP operators.The BTRC received 51 applications for VoIP licences on October 8. Applicants include 31 Internet Service Providers (ISPs), 14 Public Switched Telephone Networks (PSTNs) and six mobile phone companies.But without a common platform, powerful illegal VoIP operators who are among these applicants will now easily get BTRC licences, and will not only eat up the market of Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) but ...
(read more) Friday, September 1st, 2006The telecommunication secretary had misled the government by not revealing gross irregularities in the two deals that were slipped through the cabinet purchase committee on August 21. These controversially structured multimillion dollars deals with Huawei Technology of China now await the prime minister's approval.One of them is a $3.5 million contract to deploy an optical fibre transmission link between Dhaka and Rajshahi. The planning ministry's Central Procurement Technical Unit (CPTU) had repeatedly alerted the telecoms secretary that Huawei has "created the opportunity to influence the decision" in its favour by hosting overseas trips for the officials who evaluated this bid.CPTU ...
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