Following a recent policy decision, the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) has taken the initiative to conduct a comprehensive audit of Teletalk, the state-owned telecom company, for the first time.

Teletalk, as a state-owned entity, holds an important position in providing mobile and data services to a substantial portion of the population. The audit aims to assess the company's operations, financial health, and adherence to regulatory guidelines. When asked about the initiative, Musfiq Mannan Choudhury, Commissioner of BTRC, said, "We have already issued files to audit Teletalk". 

Previously, BTRC has conducted audits of the three private operators, namely Grameenphone, Robi, and Banglalink. However, this marks the first time that the government telecom operator Teletalk is being formally audited by the regulatory commission.

As per official sources, the regulatory body has received audit objections of more than BDT 14 thousand crore from the three private operators. BTRC has thus far collected a part of that amount, with the rest being collected in an ongoing process.

The telecom regulator has decided to carry out information system audits into Grameenphone and Robi Axiata in the years since 2015 and form committees to start the process of appointing auditors.

The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), at a meeting last month, approved the setting up of two committees in order to hire the audit firms.

Two tender evaluation committees for the audit process will also be formed, according to the meeting documents.

The information system audit aims to ensure that the equipment and processes within GP and Robi adhere to the guidelines of the commission. It makes sure compliance with rules and regulations, including the verification of revenue collected by the companies, so that the government receives its due share.

The decision to carry out the audits comes although the claims of the first audits into the operators haven't been settled yet.

The telecom regulator ran separate audits into the two operators from their inception to December 2014 and claimed Tk 12,579 crore from GP and Tk 867 crore from Robi.

The claims include the amounts for unpaid annual spectrum fees, value-added tax, and revenue sharing. However, both operators disputed the sum and claimed that they did not evade any taxes.

The dispute triggered a legal battle between the operators and the BTRC, with the companies filing cases in 2019.

Based on the audit of GP from 1997 to 2014, the BTRC sent a demand notice in April 2019, asking it to clear the payments.

Later, GP filed the case before the district court against the claim. The Supreme Court in November of that year ordered the operator to give Tk 2,000 crore in three months to the commission.

Afterward, the appellate division directed the largest mobile phone operator of the country to deposit Tk 1,000 crore by February 2020 and another Tk 1,000 crore by May 2020. GP complied.

Of the Tk 12,579 crore, the operator hasn't yet cleared more than Tk 6,100 crore slapped as a late fee.

Additionally, it paid over Tk 2,392 crore out of Tk 4,085 crore owed to the National Board of Revenue.

GP did not respond to The Daily Star's request for comments yesterday regarding the BTRC's new audit process.

"We want an amicable solution on the rest of the dues claimed in the audit," Yasir Azman, chief executive officer of GP, told The Daily Star recently.

Out of Tk 867 crore, Robi, the second-largest operator of Bangladesh, paid Tk 138 crore in five instalments by May 2020 to comply with the order of the High Court Division.

According to Robi's annual report for 2022, a substantial part of the BTRC's claim includes the VAT on spectrum fees and VAT rebate/credit cancellation, which are either part of other ongoing litigations or in respect of which the BTRC has no jurisdiction to claim relevant amounts.

"We filed a general petition with the court five years ago, challenging the outcomes of the previous audit. The telecom regulator is yet to respond to the petition. Therefore, we haven't seen any progress on the sub judice matter," Shahed Alam, chief corporate and regulatory officer at Robi Axiata, told The Daily Star.

"We hope the regulator will take necessary steps to resolve pending issues of the previous audit."

The regulator also conducted audits into Banglalink from 1996 to 2019 and asked the operator to pay more than Tk 820 crore last year.

Of the figure, Tk 390 crore has been sought as VAT, tax and fees, and outstanding dues related to revenue-sharing, handset royalty, access frequency and microwave frequency payments, and the licence fees as principal amount. The rest, or Tk 430 crore, was claimed as late fees.

The operator has deposited Tk 335 crore of the principal amount as of now and will pay the rest of the principal amount of Tk 390 crore in instalments, according to an official of the operator.

Banglalink is trying to mutually resolve the BTRC's audit outcome, so it hasn't filed any case.

An official of the BTRC told The Daily Star that the commission has sent a letter to the government on waiving the late fees.

The BTRC also took the initiative to audit other state-owned and private companies in the telecommunication ecosystem.

It has recently demanded payments from state-run Teletalk Bangladesh and Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited, asking them to clear dues amounting to a staggering Tk 3,000 crore collectively.

Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) is formulating a new rule to enable customers to receive compensation for every call drop suffered, albeit a maximum of seven a day.

Up until now, the compensation has been one minute of talk time for every call drop.

Currently, only the customers who have faced multiple call drops a day get the compensation, that too counting from the second one and onwards.

"We have observed that the incidence of one call drop (a day) is the highest…So, I think the customers deserve to get their money back," Mustafa Jabbar, posts, telecommunications and information technology minister, told The Daily Star.

Taking every call drop to be Tk 0.60 in value, the telecom watchdog estimates that Grameenphone, Robi and Banglalink have not provided Tk 10.74 crore in compensation to customers in the first six months of this year.

Of the amount, Grameenphone owes Tk 2.22 crore, Robi Tk 6.16 crore, and Banglalink Tk 1.72 crore.

The Daily Star talked to eight mobile phone users who suffered multiple call drops in a single day and found that only one got such compensation ever.

Officials of the mobile operators explained that they were only compensating call drops occurring for calls being made and received on a single network, which they feel could be due to that network's glitches.

Since the other types of call drops involve multiple parties, which could be another operator, interconnection exchange or fibre cable company, the problem could arise from any end, making detection and sharing payouts difficult.

The new rule could contradict the BTRC's current call drop policy, which stipulates that a mobile operator's call drop rate should be less than 2 per cent of its overall calls.

Mobile networking technology is wireless and it works via a radio transmission solution. With such technology, call drop is a common incidence, said an official of an operator.

Call drops are a very common phenomenon in wireless networks of mobile phone operators, said Shahed Alam, chief corporate and regulatory affairs officer of Robi Axiata.

"The new guidelines issued by the regulatory body in this regard will provide a temporary solution to the customer's problem. To solve this problem in the long run, we need to dig deeper and take action according to the nature of the problem," he said.

The operator has long been blaming network jammers and barriers on tower installation for the call drops.

In many areas in the capital, towers can't be installed due to a lack of space and other restrictions, resulting in call drops in adjacent areas.

Unauthorised signal jammers are another concern for the operators as many religious sites use them to stop phones going off during prayers. This causes call drops in adjacent areas.

However, the customers said they are terribly suffering from call drops and voices breaking up.

The customers firmly believe that the operators should be held accountable for the call drops and low-quality services.