BTRC & BTCL Formation

Formation of BTRC and BTCL

Formation of
BTRC and BTCL

The BTRC (Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission) established in January 2002, is the driving force in opening up competition for this sector, rationalize the spectrum policy and establish formal control over the telecommunication networks and interconnection to stimulate entrepreneurs and to improve quality of service. With a population of 147 million in the country, but only 50 million working phones; indicates the enormous prospect for telecommunications market yet to be explored. Today there are as good as thirteen (13) PSTN Operators and six (6) Mobile Phone operators and now there are over 130 million mobile telephone users in Bangladesh, more than most of the European countries.

With the new operators (Fixed and Mobile telephones) set up and ever
expanding customer base line, the BTRC (Govt. of Bangladesh) took a
revolutionary decision of allocating license in the private sector for three
IGW (International Gateway) operators, two ICX (Interconnection
Exchange) operators and one IIG (International Internet Gateway) operator
through a competitive tender bidding process in 2007. By early
2008 following licenses were granted for commencing their operation:

IGW (International Gateway)
ICX (Interconnection Exchange)
IIG (International Internet Gateway)

By the end of 2009, the mobile phone customer base has reached from 2.2 million in 2004 to 52.43 million in 2009 and 9,50,000 fixed line telephone is nowin 2009. Today the average telephone call volume per day stands at following rate:

  • International In-coming Calls: 30 to 40 million of minutes per day
  • International Out-going Calls: 3 to 4 million of minutes per day
  • Domestic Inter operators Calls: 90 to 100 millions minutes per day.
In order to curb the illegal VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and divert all international calls through the accountable & legal routes, in the recent pastthe BTRC has started issuing new license for the IP Telephony operators. This is expected to help Government to earn more revenue and discourage thesilent mushrooming of illegal circuits