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The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) has imposed administrative fines totaling Tk 86.82 million on four mobile operators after identifying 8,682 SIM cards allegedly used for illegal Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) call termination.
Separate notices signed by BTRC Deputy Director Sharmin Sultana on July 21 imposed a fine of Tk 10,000 for each illegally used SIM card, citing the operators’ failure to prevent the misuse.
Robi Axiata received the largest penalty of Tk 59.35 million for 5,935 SIMs found to have been used in illegal VoIP operations. Banglalink was fined Tk 18.82 million for 1,882 SIMs, state-owned Teletalk was ordered to pay Tk 6.81 million for 681 SIMs, while Grameenphone was fined Tk 1.84 million for 184 SIMs.
According to the BTRC, the illegal SIMs were identified during joint enforcement operations with the National Telecommunication Monitoring Centre (NTMC) in Chattogram and Cumilla. The regulator said the operators had failed to implement adequate safeguards to prevent their networks from being used for unauthorized international call termination.
The telecom regulator has directed the operators to pay the fines within 10 days of receiving the notices.
However, the mobile operators have challenged the regulator’s decision, arguing that they had already taken steps to prevent such misuse.
Banglalink’s Head of Corporate Communications, Touhid Ahmed, said most of the identified SIM cards had already been deactivated through the company’s internal monitoring system before the enforcement action, making the penalty unjustified.
Robi’s Chief Corporate and Regulatory Officer, Barrister Sahed Alam, said the company had not yet received any formal notice from the BTRC. He added that more than 95% of the identified SIMs had already been disconnected from the network before the alleged violations were reported.
Grameenphone’s Head of Communications, Sharifuddin Ahmed Chowdhury, urged regulators to hold the actual offenders accountable instead of placing responsibility on mobile operators for the unlawful activities of individual subscribers.
The BTRC has maintained that telecom operators are responsible for ensuring effective monitoring systems to prevent their networks from being exploited for illegal international VoIP call termination, which causes significant revenue losses to the government and licensed telecom operators.
