News Title : BTRC move to lower voice call rate halted

News Date : 2015-10-18

-Staff Correspondent
The telecom regulator’s move to lower the call rate for the mobile phone users has become stagnant following a merger move by two mobile operators — Robi and Airtel, said officials. The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission in August decided to study the inter-operator charges on the voice call tariff in a bid to lower the call rate at the user level. The BTRC also asked the mobile operators to submit written recommendations in this regard by August 31. BTRC officials said Airtel and Citycell were in favour of lowering voice call tariff by reducing inter-operator charges while Grameenphone, Banglalink and Robi took the opposite stance. The opposing operators also demanded cost modelling by international firms before taking any decision in this regard. ‘The process currently remains halted because of the merger move by Robi and Airtel,’ a senior BTRC official told New Age on Thursday. He said that the commission was currently observing the market situation as the merger was expected to change the market dynamics. ‘Post-merger changed scenario might need different approach,’ he said. Another BTRC official, however, said the inter-operator rate cut proposal was made by Airtel and the company has now changed its position on the issue. ‘As Airtel is in the merger process which will make it a part of the country’s second largest operator, now it doesn’t want inter-operator rate cuts,’ he said. Currently, the call charges are highest Tk 2 a minute and lowest Tk 0.25 a minute at the end user level while a mobile operator pays Tk 0.18 a minute to another operator for each off-net call. In 2009, the BTRC had set the voice tariff following a cost modelling done by the International Telecommunication Union, a UN body that deals with such issues.

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