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VoIP licence policy in Bangladesh

The government's newly adopted international telecom service policy bars already-licensed local and foreign private telephone companies and internet service providers (ISPs) from getting licences to operate any kind of system through which all overseas calls will be channelised in the near future.

This means the foreign investors, phone companies and ISPs will not be able to operate the three private International Gateway (IG), Interconnection Exchange (ICX) and Internet Exchanges (IX), implementation of which will stop illegal VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) activities. They will however be entitled to Internet Protocol (IP) telephony licences.

Such a hard stance was taken because all phone companies, including foreign investors, and ISPs were found involved in illegal VoIP activities which were depriving the government of thousands of crores taka in revenue from overseas calls.

It was previously thought that illegal VoIP operators were gobbling up international calls worth around Tk 2,000 crore each year but the latest assessment puts the figure at around Tk 15,000 crore a year. “This demands that we establish a policy regime where the entities that grew on illegal activities are not allowed to get new business,” notes a source.

Besides, the new policy makes it mandatory for all telecom-related operators to provide access to law enforcement agencies for lawful interception as per Bangladesh Telecommunication Act, 2001.

Under the newly adopted International Long Distance Telecommunication Services (ILDTS) Policy, only new Bangladeshi private entities able to show the source of their investment will be given these vital licences while the state-owned Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) will operate one IG.

The three new international call systems that demand at least Tk 900 crore investment may become operational from mid-2008 in the best case scenario.

Bangladesh Telecom Regulatory Commission (BTRC) is set to float an open auction for setting up three IGs this December. “The process will be transparent and the auction will be held at Bangladesh-China Friendship Centre,” the source added.

Each of these IGs will handle and monitor Internet Protocol-based phone calls that use the country's land and cell phone systems, the submarine cable and the overseas phone exchanges.

“Setting up the IGs and associated system would effectively eliminate illegal VoIP activities but the BTRC will also have to stop the use of VSATs (very small aperture satellite). No country around the world allows use of VSATs by ISPs or for commercial use. VSATs are used only for corporate communication everywhere and we also have to limit its use within corporate entities,” said an official.

“Illegal VoIP calls are still being made using thousands of VSATs across the country while all the legal calls are now being channelised through the submarine cable and the BTTB exchange,” he mentioned.

But VSATs are now providing an important back up for the on-land fibre optic line linked with the submarine cable that connects the nation to the information highway of the world. Often when the fibre optic line between the submarine cable in Cox's Bazar and Chittagong's phone network is cut-off by miscreants, the VSATs provide a slower but workable back up.

“Again, we suspect that some vested interests involved in illegal VoIP operations, are involved in snapping the fibre optic line. To eliminate this, the BTTB must take the solid fibre optic line of the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB) as back up. The PGCB line is set up on high tension power lines. Miscreants will find it difficult to snap those. Besides, the BTTB had signed the primary agreement to rent the PGCB line for Tk 20 crore two years ago as a back up system,” the official said.

ILDTS policy highlights
The government framed this policy amid tight secrecy to avoid pressure or influence from the illegal but very powerful VoIP lobbies. It aims at facilitating, liberalising and legitimising ILDTS including VoIP. “The policy is primarily focused on providing affordable communication means to people… encouraging local entrepreneurs, encouraging new technologies to grow and ensuring due earning of revenue for the government,” says its preface.

The 13-page policy's most important aspect is the licence awarding procedure. It says, “IGW, ICX and IX licences will be issued only to Bangladeshi entities… Foreign entities… and non-resident Bangladeshi entities cannot be eligible to the Owners/Directors/ Shareholders/ Investors/Partners of these licencee entities. All financial transactions must be through a scheduled bank of Bangladesh.”

The licences will be awarded through open auction.

IGW, ICX and IX operators will issue Initial Public Offer (IPO) in the stock market of Bangladesh.

IP Telephony licences will be issued only to the holders of ISP operators licence except PSTN/PLMN operators having ISP licences.

The licence shall not be transferable.

The policy notes, “Indiscrimate use of VSAT has been one of the means of conducting unauthorised VoIP call business. As such it is crucial to control unauthorised use of VSAT. VSAT will not be allowed for voice services except IGWs. VSAT connected to IXs will be allowed for data communication only.”

All operators will provide call detail record and any other monitoring facilities of voice and data calls for on-line and off-line monitoring by the BTRC.

Illegal VoIP operations
A source pointed out that the drive against illegal VoIP operation launched earlier this year surprisingly revealed that all mobile and 30-plus Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN) companies as well as majority of the ISPs were involved in this illegal activity. These include City Cell, Grameenphone, AKTEL and Banglalink.

Cases have been lodged against these companies and the BTRC is considering financially penalising each of them.

“Some companies, admitting their misdeeds, are literally bargaining with the BTRC on how much penalty is justified for them -- whether it should be a few hundred crore taka or a thousand crore,” notes a source.

“Official figures show that we have 17 million paid minutes of overseas calls every day. This used to be just 8 million paid minutes before the February drive against illegal VoIP operation,” he points out.

“But according to our international telecom sources, outgoing and incoming overseas calls in Bangladesh stand at a stunning 70 million minutes. This means we have not succeeded in uprooting illegal VoIP operations … This also means that there is a largely untapped legal business opportunity here.”

New investor uncertainty
As setting up each of the IGs demands as much as Tk 300 crore investment, the biggest question is whether the BTRC would get any bidder not already involved in telecom or ISP business. “There is also this question whether there is any investor of this magnitude with clean money,” the source noted.

The BTRC hopes that solid investors backed by banks would spring up at the bid.

“The BTRC bid may fail, and then we might consider other options. But as it stands today, the business proposition is very strong. Even if we consider setting up the IGs to handle the 17 million minute calls per day, with per minute call charge of only 3 US cents, we are talking about a revenue of 186 million dollars,” he adds.

According to him, an investor for IG or ICX would recover the cost of investment within 18 months even after giving up to 82 percent of the gross revenue to the government and the BTRC. Then onwards, the IG operator will get huge returns.

Policy criticism
Phone companies are critical about the policy's investment restriction saying that it will ultimately make overseas calls costly and affect end-users.

“This policy aims at creating middlemen. Majority of the subscribers are mobile phone users. So, when the new system adds new operators, they would charge the phone companies extra for each call. This charge will be ultimately passed on to the subscribers,” said an executive of a phone company requesting not to be named.

Besides, the new investors will lack the level of efficiency that the phone companies have.

Regarding investment, he said, “I guess there will be new business consortiums, instead of just one investor for each of the bid. Surely the phone companies will not be in this field even indirectly. We hope the BTRC follows strict transparency and does not favour certain quarters.” Source: The Daily Star

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 MSN Message error 80048820, unable to signin

Problems:
- While you try to Sign in MSN Messenger you getting an error message with the no. 80048820
- Unable to Sing in

Probably reasons-
- Your system time/date incorrect
- Internet Proxy setting incorrect
- softpub.dll disable/missing
- Firewall does not allow to access, etc.

Solution-

Step#1
- Remove Internet Explorer proxy server settings and check the 'Automatically detect settings'.
- Launch Internet Explorer, click "Tools" and then click Internet Options. From the Internet Options dialog box, go to the Connections tab. Click LAN Setting. Uncheck the Use a proxy server for your LAN checkbox. Finally tick/check: 'Automatically detect settings'.

Step#2
- Correct the computer system's Time/Day as current (if required).

Step#3
- Click Start (Button), and then click Run, type regsvr32 softpub.dll click ok.

Step#4
- Turn off the firewall. Check firewall settings such as Norton: "Block access to secure sites". If this cures the problem, make sure that Microsoft's MSN Messenger is allowed full access through your firewall.

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Microsoft to reward search engine users
The Daily Star

Microsoft on Friday began offering large businesses rewards if they have employees scout the Internet with the software giant's Live Search service.

In a move intended to wrest users from rival search engines such as market-dominating Google, Microsoft will give business customers service or training credits based on how much employees use Live Search.

"We are conducting a trial program through which Microsoft is providing service or training credits to a select number of enterprise customers based on the number of Web search queries conducted by their employees via Live Search," the Redmond, Washington, company said in a written statement.

"As search evolves into more of a productivity tool, and revenue sharing becomes more commonplace across the industry, we are engaging in mutually beneficial partnerships such as this and our recently announced a deal with Lenovo to more easily enable customers to choose Live Search."

Microsoft announced a deal this month to pre-install software that makes Live.com the default page in computers made by the China-based Lenovo.

Google has a deal with US computer maker Dell to preload its search engine tool bar on that company's machines.

Microsoft would not disclose how the credits are calculated, saying it depended on the number of personal computers enrolled in the program and the amount of Live Search use.

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Extensions Help Boost Firefox's Attractiveness

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The Firefox Web browser is more than a navigator -- it's a veritable online ecosystem that is continually expanding and evolving.

This is largely due to software plug-ins called "extensions" that turbocharge Firefox with additional capabilities. I have access to hundreds of the modules, which typically work on both PCs and Macs, and I use several of them daily. More extensions are continually being developed and released to the public, usually for free.

Firefox creator Mozilla is revamping its extensions directory to make the plug-ins easier to find, install and improve. The new extensions portal is due to go live in the coming days (go to http://addons.mozilla.org for the current directory as well as the coming one).

The nonprofit Mozilla also is launching a publicity campaign focused on its "add-ons" and pointing users to extensions it sees as best-of-breed. It's enlisting the help of Firefox fans to help spread the word, too.

So why should you care? If you're like most people on Windows PCs, use Internet Explorer instead of Firefox. In either case, you have to go look for Firefox, download it and install it -- a bit of a bother, right?

Internet Explorer loses ground to Firefox

Firefox is either making huge gains or holding steady in the browser wars; it all depends on whose stats you use. Internet Explorer is losing ground in the US.

Firefox has seen its market share bounce from 9.5 percent in January 2006 to 13.67 percent a year later.

Over the same time period, Net Applications reports that usage of Internet Explorer in all of its flavors—IE 5, 6, and 7—has dropped steadily. Starting at a high of 85.31 percent at the beginning of 2006, IE usage dipped to 83.56 percent in July and bottomed out in December at 79.64 percent, recovering modestly to 79.75 percent for January 2007. OneStat's figures tell Firefox saw a significant gain of 14.3 percent.

In contrast, the worldwide browser market share figures are much more static. Firefox has shown modest growth during the past year. The open-source browser was the choice of 11.69 percent of web surfers in January 2007 compared to 11.23 percent the year previous.

Firefox continues to grow, no matter what the venue. Firefox is definitely making gains at the expense of Internet Explorer. Worldwide, some of those more modest gains appear to have come at the expense of Opera and Netscape. Firefox jumped 0.46 percentage points between January 2006 and 2007, while Opera dropped from 0.77 percent to 0.58 and Netscape dropped 0.03 percentage points to 0.13 percent. Meanwhile, IE's 0.01 percentage point share dip was statistically insignificant.

Curiously, the release of Internet Explorer 7 last summer didn't provide any additional momentum for Microsoft. IE7's browser share soared from 3.18 percent in October 2006 to 25.01 percent last month, but all of that gain came at the expense of older versions of the browser, especially IE6, which dipped from 77.17 percent to 54.04 percent, according to Net Applications.