The decision to price the internet

The government has decided to price the highest and lowest prices of mobile internet. At present there is no minimum price for internet and minimum price. As a result, mobile phone operators themselves determine the price of the internet themselves.

The government has decided to fix the cost of calling on any mobile phone number at the same rate as well as the cost of the Internet. If this decision is implemented, then the difference between the cost of calling between different operators will not be there anymore. In this, small operators like Teletalk will be more profitable. These decisions were taken at a high level meeting in the telecommunications sector. The meeting was held at the Ganabhaban in the chairmanship of Prime Minister's Information Technology Advisor Sajeeb Wazed Joy.

Post, Telecommunication and Information Technology Minister Mustafa Jabber confirmed the information in the first light yesterday, a cost modeling on the internet data price has already been completed by a consultant of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). The decision will be implemented within the next one month. This will increase the competition among mobile phone operators.

Cost modeling is the method of finding out how much the service provider has to provide a service. Different mathematical equations are used in cost modeling to determine the value of the service. BTRC had a cast modeling in 2008 with an ITU consultant to determine the value of voice call. According to that model the maximum value of voice call per minute was 2 taka and minimum price was 25 paise.

At present, the mobile phone operator has the lowest cost of talking between its customers (on-net) 25pais, and the minimum cost to call other operators (off-net) is 60 paisa. And the maximum cost of phone to any mobile phone is 2 taka

The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) took initiative to reduce the distinction between on-net and off-net calls last year. At that time, the minimum and maximum limit of call rate was 35 paisa and 1 rupee 50 paisa respectively. But then the government has not decided on this.

According to the BTRC analysis, if the new rate change option is implemented, then the cost of calling small operators to large operators will be reduced. As of now, the minimum cost is 60 paisa to make a call from Grameenphone to Teletalk. But the cost of calling Grameenphone to Grameenphone is very low. There will be no difference in calling call to Grameenphone and Teletalk at a single call rate.

According to the information given by the operators, currently the average price of the online phone is 44 paisa, and the value of off-net call is 1 rupee 56 paisa. The average on-net call of Robi is 39 paisa and 91 paisa off-net. Banglalink's on-net 39 paisa and off-net 89 paisa and Teletalk's net-net 34 paisa and off-net 86 paisa. 75 percent of calls from Grameenphone are on-the-net, and 25 percent are called off-the-net. 58 percent of Robi calls on-net and 42 percent call off-nets; 55 percent of Banglalink calls on-net and 45 percent of call off-nets and 20 percent of Teletalk calls on-net and 80 percent of call off-nets.

According to latest BTRC statistics, currently the number of active mobile connections in Bangladesh is 14.5 million And the number of internet connections is more than 8 million.