Dhaka, Jan 9, 2008: The revenue of the Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board was upped by 43 per cent to Tk 889 crore in the first six months of the current fiscal year after the payment of interconnection charge by a mobile phone operator and surge in revenue from international calls.

   BTTB officials said the ongoing drive against illegal Voice over Internet Protocol business, which started in December 2006, played a vital role in increasing the revenue of the state-owned land phone operator which earned Tk 270 crore more in the July-December period of the 2007-08 fiscal year compared with the same period of the previous fiscal year.

   In the first six months of FY 2006-07, the BTTB earned Tk 619 crore including Tk 110 crore from the overseas call segment.

   Officials said the BTTB earned around Tk 300 crore in the month of December only as the mobile phone operator, Grameenphone, paid Tk 110 crore as interconnection charge.

   The revenue from the international call segment increased by more than 100 per cent to around Tk 250 crore in the July-December period.

   ‘The revenue of the BTTB is marking a steep rise because of the ongoing drive against the VoIP business as more calls are now being routed through its own network,’ said an official.

   Officials said if the current trend continues, the BTTB might reach or get close to the revenue target set by the government for this fiscal year.

   The government set BTTB a target of earning Tk 1,927 crore in the current fiscal year.

   In the last fiscal year, the revenue of the BTTB registered a 20.5 per cent jump to Tk 1,657 crore from the previous fiscal year because of the crackdown on illegal internet telephony and realisation of long-outstanding phone bills from large defaulters.

 

@ The Bangladesh Journal

Comments (0)

Print

Tell friend

Top

---