- In Bangladesh, the minimum termination price of international call is 1 rupee 60 paise
- The international call termination value in Bangladesh is more than 5 times higher than the call rate in India
India has reduced the international call price from foreign currency So much so that in the country the term of termination of international call was 53 paisa in local currency, which was reduced to 30 paisa on February 1. However, the minimum cost of international call in Bangladesh is 1 rupee 60 paise. That is, the international call termination value in Bangladesh is more than 5 times higher than the call rate in India.
Call termination rate is the cost of reaching the customer when called from one country to another country. If someone in Bangladesh calls from Bangladesh to Saudi Arabia, then they first come to the International Gateway Operator (IGW) of Bangladesh. Then it goes to ICX (Interconnection Exchange) through a mobile phone operator to the customer. For this, IGW of Bangladesh takes a price from Saudi Arabia's operators. This price is called Call Termination Rate. This income of IGW operators is again shared among government, mobile phone operators and ICX.
Telecommunication Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the telecom sector regulator, has decided to reduce the call rate considering the fact that the number of calls is increasingly valid. According to the TRAI, the amount of call to legal passage in India in 2016-17 fiscal year was 8,7740 million minutes, which was 9,240 crore minutes in the fiscal year 2015-16. Although India's IGW and mobile phone operators were demanding, the price of international call rates increased from 53 paisa to 3.5 rupees But instead of doing it down to 30 paisa.
In Bangladesh, the minimum terminal rate of international call is fixed at one and a half cent or 1 rupee. Although the call does not come at this price. The maximum price for this type of call is fixed at three to three cents or two paise 80 paisa. In September 2013, Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), according to this call-rate, was tentatively scheduled. After four years of time, no change was made to determine the highest or minimum price for international call rates.
Meanwhile, IGW operators are not sharing income with the concerned parties including the government at the price at which the calls are being made from abroad. IGW operators from abroad imported the call at Tk. 60, whereas the share was shared with the lowest price of Tk. 20 paise. According to the rules, 40 per cent of BTRC, 17.5 per cent ICX, 22.5 per cent of mobile operators and 20 per cent of IGW companies are getting income from every minute call from abroad.
Until September 2015, when the international call rate was 1 rupee 20 paise, the number of daily calls made in legal way was 11 million minutes. But after the increase in the price of calls, the number of calls started to decrease. Currently, daily international calls have come down to 6 crores. According to the sector wise, in the last three years, the number of international calls in the country decreasing by almost half because of the increased call rate. If the call rate is less then the number of invalid VoIP calls is reduced.
In April of last year, BTRC made some proposals, like TARAI, to raise international revenue and government revenue in legitimate ways. One of these proposals was to reduce the maximum cost of bringing calls from abroad from Tk. 80 paise to 1 rupee 28 paise. The price at which price will come, share the income with the government and other parties, in that proportion. Although these decisions were made in consultation with all stakeholders including IGW, none of this has been implemented yet.
Asked about the findings of senior Asian researcher Abu Said Khan, a research organization based on the telecommunications industry, said that the decision to reduce the international call rate has been hanging in order to protect the interests of a particular group. The BTRC does not have the moral strength to implement this decision, which is the TRAI.