The committee proposed four government common platforms for overseas telephony gateway, committee member and Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) General Manager (security and surveillance) Lt Col Zia Safdar told reporters.

Briefing newsmen at his office after submitting the recommendations to the government, he said the committee also recommended allowing private operators, especially the local companies, to develop more common platforms.

The seven-member technical committee headed by Saiful Islam, professor of electrical and electronic engineering at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet), submitted the nine-point recommendation to Post and Telecommunications Adviser Mirza Azizul Islam at his ministry office.

As short-term measures to overcome the country's current crisis in overseas telecommunications, the committee suggested continuing VoIP operation through existing data transmission gateway of the BTTB submarine cable network.

It recommended augmenting the capacity of the data transmission gateway by setting some new equipment within next two months.

It also suggested enhancing the BTTB international telephone circuit capacity by introducing 3,000 more circuits in addition to the existing 11,000 circuits within shortest possible time and another 24,000 within next three months to ease the current international call congestions.

The committee recommended formation of a technical committee for monitoring the private traffic records of the private platform in order to assess revenue earning.

Its suggestions also include speeding up the government procurement process with a view to quick establishment of the common platforms. The way to establishing common platforms was hampered in two previous bids due to lengthy procurement process.

The committee also suggested identifying and punishing operators involved in illegal VoIP business for the last few years.

It recommended seeking an alternative submarine network link of the existing SEAMEV(4) cable to reduce dependency on the lone international gateway.

Other members of the committee are Satya Prasad Majumder¸ chairman of electrical and electronic engineering department, Buet, Ashraful Alam, BTTB member (maintenance and operation), Monirul Alam, director (telephone) of post and telecommunications ministry, Rezaul Kadir, director (BTRC) of the same ministry, and Lt Col Gazi Md Salahuddin.

The committee was formed on February 5, 2007 to gather suggestions on how the VoIP licences can be opened and to ease the existing congestion on overseas telecommunications following busting of a good number of illegal VoIP operators across the country recently.