The new system has also withdrawn the distance factor for call charges. Calls between upazilas of a district will now be treated as local calls. An NWD call within 100 kilometres is charged at Tk 3 a minute during peak and Tk 1.50 during off-peak hours. The rates are Tk 4.50 and Tk 3 for calls for a distance above 100 kilometres. The monthly line rent has been reduced to Tk 80 in Dhaka and Chittagong multi-exchange areas, Tk 70 in districts and Tk 50 in upazilas. The board now charges Tk 150 in line rent. Fee for the transfer of telephones has been reduced to Tk 1,000 in Dhaka and Chittagong multi-exchange areas, Tk 500 in district and Tk 300 in upazilas. 

Reconnection of a barred line will now cost Tk 1,000 in Dhaka and Chittagong Multi-exchange areas and Tk 500 in districts and upazilas. The new rate for the transfer and change in ownership is Tk 1,000 in Dhaka and Chittagong areas, Tk 500 in districts and Tk 300 in upazilas. Change in telephone number will now cost Tk 1,000.

New Age Report

:: bdnews24.com ::

The Chittagong-Cox’s Bazar fibre optic transmission link with the country’s only submarine cable was back up after about 10 hours of disruptions through Monday, an official with the BTTB said.

The breakdown of the link created “congestion” in the overseas phone and disrupted internet services.

The transmission link came back up at 00:25am Tuesday after it snapped at 2:30pm Monday, according to Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board.

In a statement, BTTB said the link snapped at Chokoria, some 120 kilometres off Chittagong towards Cox’s Bazar, the second time it has gone down with in a week.

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:: bdnews24.com ::

Dhaka, Aug 23 (bdnews24.com) – International telephony, internet and private international data circuits went down when the submarine cable link was “sabotaged” at 00:05am Thursday, a senior BTTB official confirmed.

It cut off Bangladesh from the rest of the world and intensified panic and confusion at home and abroad amid widespread violence across much of the country for days.

Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) has been trying to restore the country’s only terrestrial overseas communication lifeline.

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:: bdnews24.com ::

Dhaka, Nov 13 (bdnews24.com) – A suspected act of sabotage derailed telecommunications transmission optical fibre cable links between Dhaka and Chittagong Monday night.Submarine cable subscribers in Dhaka got disconnected at 7:30pm.

Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board rushed a maintenance team to the spot on the outskirts of Comilla town but failed to put the connection back on.

A senior official told bdnews24.com that the BTTB suspected the cable cut was an “act of sabotage”.

”There is no maintenance work of the Roads and Highways Division in the area which is generally the primary cause of such cable cuts,” he said in support of his argument.

”We cannot repair the cable in the night as we don’t have enough workers.”

BTTB has approximately 17,000 employees.

The government violated the law by allowing the state-run telecoms monopoly to own and operate the country’s only submarine cable network. Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) built the SEA-ME-WE4 submarine cable and its associated infrastructure from the earnings of its other telecoms ventures and the law explicitly prohibits such practices of subsidisation.

Subsection C of Section 49 of the telecoms law says, “If an operator provides more than one service, but there exists competition in the market in providing one of such services and no competition in case of another service provided by him, then subsidy from the earnings of the service which is subject to competition shall not be allowed for the other service which is not subject to competition.”

BTTB built the cable’s landing station in Cox’s Bazar and from there it deployed an optical fibre link up to Chittagong from the earnings of its fixed telephony, Internet and data connectivity services. This is what the law explicitly prohibits because the private sector is also offering all these three categories of services through competition.

Therefore, the government cannot build the submarine cable from the earnings of the services ‘which are subject to competition’ and it must take away the submarine cable’s control from BTTB’s grip as soon as possible to comply with the legal provision and create a level playing field to foster the growth of telecoms and ICT sectors, sources said.

Otherwise, the government remains vulnerable to legal actions for such a gross non-compliance with the law, which might even temporarily stall the cable’s commercial operations causing a great deal of trouble for the undersea cable users of Bangladesh.

BTTB’s undisputed control over the SEA-ME-WE4 provides free bandwidth to its state-owned Internet service. It allows BTTB to maintain an artificially lower tariff for its Internet services while private Internet service providers (ISPs) have to buy the same bandwidth, which compels them to impose higher tariff on their services, putting them in disadvantage in competition with BTTB.