The government had also miserably failed to undertake any telecom project, which could be supplementary to our embarrassingly low teledensity in 2004. Lack of vision, inconsistent regulation, widespread corruption and ineffective leadership are attributed to its miserable performance in telecom sector.

Ignoring the undeniable significance of telecom, the government remains obsessed with ICT (Information and Communication Technology). After banging its head on the wall for not progressing in software export, the government became fanatical about VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol).

Ultra-romantic civil society, opportunist industry and hype-loving media have been contributing to the government's deception of legalising VoIP. Lack of unlimited competition in international gateway under an effective interconnection regime remains the fundamental flaw of this highly publicised pseudo-reform.

Such public-private joint venture of ignorance has ultimately helped the state-owned BTTB (Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board) to strengthen its monopoly. BTTB has been receiving overseas calls using VoIP technology since the third quarter of 2003.

Recently it started sending international calls, using VoIP, to limited destinations, at 80 per cent less tariff than its traditional service. BTTB's urban subscribers of Dhaka, Narayanganj and Gazipur enjoy this VoIP facility, which would be made available to rest of the country. The mobile phone users will, eventually, get this privilege.

Since the government is yet to "legalise" the usage of VoIP, the BTTB has been "illegally" receiving and sending overseas phone calls using this "forbidden" technology. Interestingly, the telecom minister, who is also a lawyer, had officially inaugurated such "illegal act" by making an overseas VoIP call to our Ambassador in Washington. Since when and how the government remains above the law?

The telecom minister was fully frank to the media when he claimed the reduction of international telephone tariff. Actually the government has not at all done that. It had rather unlawfully allowed BTTB to open another gateway to process its international calls using VoIP technology. Since BTTB pays no licence fees and incurs no extra capital or operating costs, the price of its VoIP service is inherently low.

The government should cut BTTB's all overseas tariff by 80 per cent, to substantiate the telecom minister's proclamation of international call charge reduction. Otherwise, the minister, by default, remains liable for officially misleading the nation. After all, the introduction CNG (Compressed natural gas) does not, under any circumstances, imply to the reduction of gasoline price.

It will be a foolish daydream to think that BTTB's VoIP service would end the unlicensed overseas call termination and origination ventures. Because the "mobile-to-mobile" subscribers have already outnumbered the BTTB's entire clientele. At least half million more users will be added to the existing million-plus "mobile intercom" users by this year.

Such a fast growing captive mobile market of Bangladesh is becoming the preferred destination of the international voice carriers. BTTB should be happy to know that most of its large international business partners have been pumping millions of minutes to the captivated mobile market. The volume of such unlicensed traffic, which the government is unable to govern, has been increasing steadily.

This is the snow-ball effect of a simple but fundamental regulatory flaw. One day the state-owned BTTB had denied the private mobile operators accessing its fixed telephone network. Today that captive mobile market has not only dwarfed the BTTB's network but it is also changing the telecom landscape of Bangladesh.

Had BTTB provided the fixed-to-mobile interconnection, the exchequer could have bagged the revenue of million-plus mobile subscribers. After losing their fundamental right of doing business, the private mobile operators have been ruthlessly violating the subscribers' right. That is another story.

But it is imperative for the government to invest on BTTB's network expansion in order to ensure interconnection on demand. It secures the government's return on investment while spending more than Tk. 5.00 billion (Five hundred crore) for BTTB's scandalous mobile project is destined to be doomed.

By the way, the prime minister had earlier announced that BTTB's nationwide mobile service would be launched in June 2004. The government is yet to approve that project. Let us put it this way the telecom ministry and BTTB had jointly misled the prime minister.

The writer is a telecom analyst