BTCL hikes incoming call rate

State-owned BTCL's incoming call volume dropped after it increased the international call termination rate to 2 cents per minute from 1.5 cents on December 1.

The move by Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Ltd or BTCL came after the International Gateway Operators Forum hiked its rate to 2 cents per minute from 1.5 cents on August 24.

On November 30, the BTCL had 1.98 crore minutes, which came down to 90 lakh minutes on December 3, a company official said. Call termination is routing of phone calls from one telecom operator to another.

"It's very natural to see the call volume fall with the activation of the increased rate," said Golam Fakhruddin Ahmed Chowdhury, managing director of BTCL. "We haven't yet calculated the financial gain or loss from the new rate."

Gateway operators too saw a drop in their call volumes following their rate hike: it came down to 5.7 crore minutes on November 30 from 12.1 crore minutes in August.