Once again the gun on the customer's neck! Call rates hiked to boost revenue - BTCL

The Dhaka Times Desk Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited (BTCL) has increased its landline call rates. Along with this, the line rent has also been increased. This new call rate has come into effect from October 28. And the customers have expressed their anger at this decision of the company.

However, even if the general customers express their anger, the revenue of BTCL will increase by Tk 72 crore per year due to the new tariff being effective, said Azizul Islam, the managing director of the company.

He also said, 'We see that all the mobile phone companies are keeping an average of 84 paisa minutes. 15 paisa has been increased in other operators. But still our call rate is lower than any phone company in the country. He also said that BTCL has fixed the new tariff to increase the revenue.

The new tariff was approved by the board of directors of the company recently. In the new tariff (from BTCL to another operator) the call rate has been increased from 65 paisa to 80 paisa. While BTCL to BTCL call rates remain unchanged, the monthly line rent has been doubled.

The monthly line rent of BTCL's Dhaka, Chittagong and Khulna customers has been increased from Tk 80 to Tk 160, the line rent of district headquarters has been increased from Tk 70 to Tk 120 and the line rent of all upazilas has been increased from Tk 50 to Tk 80. However, the call rate of 50 units per month has been kept unchanged. Before this, the call rate of BTCL was last increased on July 1, 2009.

Customers have expressed their anger over the sudden increase in call and line rent, saying that BTCL is increasing the call rate when everyone is reducing the call rate. And the media is silent about it. A customer said, 'The line rent has literally been doubled. This cannot be accepted. It is not acceptable to increase the line rent by so much in one jump. It is not possible that they will shoot with a friend on the customer's neck.'

When questioned in this regard, Azizul Islam, managing director of BTCL, claimed that the call rate has been further reduced. He said, 'Earlier the call rate from BTCL to BTCL was always 30 paise. Now from 8 am to 8 pm 30 paise, but from 8 pm to 8 am it has been reduced to 10 paisa.