How customers view DPDC and BTCL
ELECTRICITY and telephone, two basic and necessary services, have been historically unreliable and riddled with rampant corruption in Bangladesh. The organisations — Dhaka Electric Supply Authority (DESA), Dhaka Electric Supply Company (DESCO), and Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) — providing the services are known for causing monumental problems for the common users. Read more
IPitomy Holds First Annual Dealer Conference
Sarasota, Florida (PRWEB) October 29, 2008 — IPitomy held its first annual Dealer Conference and Expo on October 16th and 17th at the Lido Beach Resort, Sarasota, Florida. A long list of new products and enhancements were unveiled to the capacity crowd of IPitomy Dealers, who are among the nation’s leading Unified Communications System resellers. Read more
Samsung Pixon – a new cameraphone with 8 MP
The Samsung Electronics Company presented another sensor cameraphone Samsung Pixon with 8 MP camera. It is created in the form of a monoblock without the keypad with 3,2 inches sensor display with resolution 240×400 pixels and supporting 262 thousand colors.
Among the camera functions is a 16x digital zoom, face detection, auto focus, stabilization system, automatic smile shot. The developers did not forget to add built in photo browser allowing to organize and look through the photos and place them on phoo hosting.
The Samsung Pixon is created for the GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 and UMTS/HSDPA 2100 nets and is equipped with FM radio with RDS, interface USB 2,0, Bluetooth 2,0, VT output, MicroSD slot and 200 Mb built in memory.
The battery of 1000 mAc gives the device the opportunity to work about 3,5 hours as the talk time and about 290 hours as the stand by time. With the weight of 121 gram, the dimensions of the novelty are 107,9×54,6×13,8 mm.
Curbing institutional graft: A case study of BTCL
Shahiduzzaman Khan
THE Centre for Policy Research and Social Responsibility recently undertook surveys using purposive sampling to assess the opinions of the urban educated group about Bangladesh Telephone Company Limited (BTCL) services. The BTCL is the upgraded version of the BTTB after it was made a corporate entity.
The preliminary results showed that the subscribers of BTCL experienced a variety of problems. The majority of the BTCL respondents (36.1 per cent) complained about poor connection, followed by inoperative phones (34.1 per cent). Many of the respondents also faced problems of irregular billing (12.2 per cent) and exaggerated bills (17.6 per cent).
Faced with the above-mentioned problems with services, 90 per cent of the respondents lodged complaints: 61.4 per cent had complained against core service failure (phone is out of order, poor connection), 31.5 per cent respondents complained against support service failure (irregular billing system etc.) and 7.1 per cent respondents complained against misbehaviour of service staff.
Unfortunately, 83.6 per cent lamented that the BTCL service staff demanded graft from them. Of these respondents, 49.5 per cent mentioned that the demand was direct and 50.5 per cent said the demand was indirect/implied. Surprisingly, 77.0 per cent of them gave in to the demands. It was found that on average the respondents paid Tk.580 as gratuity. The refusal to pay gratuity led to non-cooperation of the service staff for 64.4 per cent of the respondents.
It may also be noted that 67.6 per cent of the respondents expressed their dismay at the payment procedures, which they found wanting, very tiring and time consuming, and 77.8 per cent of the respondents also believed that record keeping of billing information at BTCL was not satisfactory. Only 10.8 per cent of the respondents indicated that the service provider performed the service properly the first time and 10 per cent received the service at the time when BTCL promised to do so. Also, only 10.9 per cent respondents of BTCL found the concerned officers in their chairs. In limited cases (only 12.4 per cent of the respondents), the employees assured the respondents that the problem would be resolved correctly and only 17.5 per cent of the respondents felt secure in their transactions with BTCL.
Some of the glaring corruption cases of the BTCL suggest that in a case of major corruption, BTCL showed deployment of 256 labourers on papers only to transfer files in an almirah. All the labourers were ‘deployed’ to the head office in the capital to do the task, which a class-four employee could do in a couple of hours.
A section of the corrupt BTCL officials showed the fake deployment to misappropriate huge amount of money, according to confessions by four such officials before the Truth and Accountability Commission (TAC). The TAC denied giving details of the matter, which is one of many graft incidents revealed by the four. The commission has however issued notices to 17 top-level government officials including some BTCL staffs, who are likely to face TAC soon in this connection.
Earlier, the Anti-corruption Commission (ACC) published a similar graft incident by BTCL officials in Khulna where they had ‘deployed’ 122 labourers to install a pan in a toilet. The ACC investigations reveal misappropriation of over Tk 330 million by showing fake deployments at BTCL Khulna offices. The four BTCL officials facing TAC also confessed to budget forgery and drawing huge amount through fake vouchers regularly. Police seized 35 sacks of fake vouchers from BTCL Dhaka offices through which a huge amount of money was drawn by the corrupt staffs. On deployment of 122 people for installing a single pan, TAC chief Justice Habibur Rahman Khan ironically said, “It made me think that BTCL was constructing another Taj Mahal in Khulna.”
“This is outrageous. It must have been done in connivance with each other. It has to be confirmed whether the auditors were also involved or not. And it must be worked out why the government mechanism failed to check such graft,” commented Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) Chairman Prof Mozaffer Ahmad. He asked: “How come deploying such a huge number of people for tasks like installing a toilet pan or transferring files goes unnoticed. It cannot happen so easily. There must be work orders and tenders describing the work. And what about the post audit?”
The TAC has examined report of an investigation conducted by the telecommunications ministry into BTCL budget forgery and found that over Tk 140 million was misappropriated by the engineering department in 2005-06 and over Tk 116 million by the revenue department in between 2001 and 2007. The commission also found the investigation by the telecom ministry was “incomplete, insufficient, wrongly done and biased” as the committee included members, who themselves were punished for committing corruption by BTCL. Besides, the investigation did not result in taking action against the accused as the probe body included BTCL staffs. On fake budget, in a fiscal year Tk 14,400 was made Tk 20.14 lakh by putting 20 on the left of the actual figure. The same group made another budget of Tk 1.13 lakh to Tk 21.13 lakh by adding 2.
The ACC taskforce, while probing corruption in the erstwhile BTTB, now BTCL in its Chittagong offices as part of a drive against institutional corruption, found that BTTB staffs ranging from the post divisional engineer to lineman misappropriated the money in connivance with each other. The investigators also found BTTB staffs shared the money, drawn in advance for schedule maintenance and preservation by assistant engineers, illegally among themselves by a means invented by themselves at a fixed rate.
The ACC investigation also found information that several BTCL officers and employees of Chittagong offices have amassed huge wealth beyond their known sources of income. Of the total money misappropriated, Tk 303 million was shown as additional expenditure for maintenance and preservation, while Tk 419 million through schedule work of maintenance and preservation. The investigation found that though expenditure in schedule work of maintenance and preservation, work like maintenance and preservation of exchange, switch room and rectifier room, was shown about Tk 599 million, the actual amount spent was Tk 176 million. Investigations reveal 25 percent to 40 percent of the drawn amount was spent on maintenance and entertainment purposes of the offices of the divisional engineers and top-level officers, while 10-15 percent was taken by the assistant engineers, who drew the money.
After corporatisation of the BTTB, is an effective change in sight? After the change-over, it is the same age-old bureaucracy, petty corruption, nepotism and favouritism, that are plaguing the newly formed company. It is yet to come out of the age-old inertia. Like Biman, the BTCL has excess manpower. But the management has decided against rationalisation of such manpower. As such, after being converted into company, the expenditure has not come down.
To make the BTCL a competitive telecom service-provider, it will have to provide customers with truly integrated services that include fixed line, internet connection and non-payment channels. Moreover, the BTCL can best serve the customers by devising strategies to meet the needs of specific customer segments. Offering different service packages at different price-caps may tailor the customer needs. Segmentation of the market on the basis of customers’ need and income will enhance the demand for telecom services.
The government would also need to consider offloading a sizeable part of newly formed companies’ shares on the Dhaka and Chittagong stock exchanges in different phases. This will help raise new capital for BTCL, which they desperately need to modernise the sector and buy new technology and equipment to become a quality service provider.
But what difference would it make if the same corrupt officials and employees continue to serve in these newly corporatised entities and the government leaders and high officials, directly or indirectly, enjoy the authority to interfere in day-to-day management affairs? Mere change in names or organisational restructuring is unlikely to help achieve the desired objectives. So, corporatisation is not a panacea for the problems facing the public sector organisations. Something more needs to be done to ensure transparency, accountability and good management in these entities. szkhan@thefinancialexpress-bd.com
Source: Finacial Express
TelcoBridges Wins the 2008 Internet Telephony Excellence Award
October 25, 2008 by admin
Filed under Origination
TelcoBridges™ Inc., the preferred hardware and software supplier for telecom solution developers, today announced that Technology Marketing Corporation’s INTERNET TELEPHONY® Magazine – the VoIP authority since 1998 – has named TelcoBridges’ Tmedia platform a recipient of the 2008 INTERNET TELEPHONY Excellence Award. Today’s victory is the second award within the last four weeks for the Tmedia family – which also received a “Best-of-Show” award at the recent ITEXPO West event.
TelcoBridges’ Tmedia TMG3200 is a pre-packaged and ready-to-deploy media gateway, used by some of the largest operators in the world. It is widely considered to be the highest density platform on the market – providing 2048 universal VoIP channels, with up to 64 T1/E1, triple DS3 or STM-1 support in each 1U box. It is the most efficient platform on the market – requiring less than 0.06 watts of power per channel, which is 30%-80% more efficient than competitive media gateways.
“The editorial staff of INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine is proud to include TelcoBridges’ Tmedia offering among our winners,” said Greg Galitzine, Editorial Director of INTERNET TELEPHONY. We’ve seen first-hand – at ITEXPO and at other industry events – the reaction that TelcoBridges’ customers and prospects share when they discuss the Tmedia family. We’ve honored Tmedia with an IT Excellence Award because its performance lives up to its reputation.”
“This is the 5th overall award for the Tmedia product line – providing an industry-wide validation of our product strategy, our vision, and the prowess of our world-class engineering team,” said Gaetan Campeau, President and CEO of TelcoBridges. “We thank TMC for honouring our accomplishments, yet this is just part of the picture: the rest of the endorsement comes from TelcoBridges customers, who are using our solutions to help achieve their business goals in more than 45 different countries.”
About INTERNET TELEPHONY Magazine
INTERNET TELEPHONY has been the IP Communications Authority since 1998. Beginning with the first issue in February of 1998, INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine has been providing unbiased views of the complicated converged communications space. INTERNET TELEPHONY offers rich content from solutions-focused editorial content to reviews on products and services from TMC Labs. INTERNET TELEPHONY Magazine reaches more than 225,000 readers, including pass-along readers.
About TelcoBridges
TelcoBridges is clearly defining the future of communications technologies. By supplying the industry’s best telecom platform, TelcoBridges is helping telecom solution developers of VoIP and TDM solutions realize their bright ideas. TelcoBridges’ customers develop and deploy carrier-grade telecom solutions for some of the world’s largest operators in 45 countries.
Source: voipnews.com
Virtual touchscreen keyboard coming to Android
Android OS is now official and ready to bring Google’s mobile platform to the world. The T-Mobile G1, with Android OS in tow, has barely left the starting gates and we’re already seeing complaints roll in. As the first-run edition of a new mobile OS, Android was bound to need a little refinement.
Aside from the T-Mobile G1’s battery-hungry nature, users are reportedly miffed at Android’s lack of a virtual, on-screen keyboard. While the G1 sports a full-QWERTY keyboard hidden under the flick-out touchscreen, the lack of a touchscreen keyboard forces users to get at the physical keyboard for even the most menial text-input tasks.
Well, good news for T-Mobile G1 fans and Android hopefuls alike! The Android OS development roadmap now shows Input Method Framework (IMF) support in the near future. The IMF framework will allow for soft-keyboards and other non-physical data-input methods on Android. The new Android development roadmap also hints at integrated dictionaries that should allow for text-prediction and word suggestions when typing on the touchscreen keyboard.
The Android roadmap aims for a Q1 2009 release of the soft-keyboard feature. Things are looking good for Android!
Source: intomobile.com
GETCO to deploy Oracle communications billing software
GETCO Telecommunication Limited (GETCO), the newly licensed Interconnection Exchange Service provider and a pioneer in Bangladesh communications industry, will soon deploy Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management software.
GETCO has recently been licensed by the Government of Bangladesh to act as an interconnection exchange in Bangladesh, said a press release.
This is the first such deployment of Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management (BRM) software in Bangladesh. With this software deployment, GETCO expects to fully streamline its billing operations and use the application for real-time billing, instantaneous rating of calls and to maintain all subscriber-level billing records for administrative and revenue calculation purposes.
“We had a requirement of real-time billing, rating and data sharing with our customers and with the government. We found Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management was that only solution that was able to deliver all this at an affordable totalcost of ownership (TCO). Moreover, Oracle Communications captures billing at the BSS layer which is more efficient and is several times cheaper than a billing solution used at the network layer,” said Khandker Md. Nur-a-alam, Director GETCO Telecommunications Limited.
Raghav Sahgal, Vice President, Oracle Communications, Oracle Asia Pacific said “GETCO will be the first communications company in Bangladesh to use our world-leading Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management software. We expect GETCO to benefit from efficient, real-time billing and management as several of our global customers already have.”
Source: Financial Express
What are the Advantages of having a Call Center Service for any Company?
October 23, 2008 by admin
Filed under Call Center
· The benefits combined with developing company own call-handling center are truly incredible once them. Not only will company generate new clients, but also keep existing clients satisfied.
BTCL safe haven of institutional corruption: TAC
The Truth and Accountability Commission (TAC) identified the Bangladesh Telecommunication Company Ltd (BTCL) as a safe haven of institutional corruption, reports UNB.
Citing one instance it said the state-owned company’s forerunner had hired 256 workmen for shifting files from one almirah (cupboard) to another.
The Commission unveiled the alleged corruption at a regular press briefing at its office Wednesday afternoon.
Member of the Commission Manjur Rashid Khan said they got the information after analysing an inquiry report made by Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board, the previous name of BTCL.
The rot was divulged through the confessional statements of its four employees who came to the Commission for seeking clemency in return for their ill-gotten wealth.
“One of the four employees was suspended earlier by BTCL on charge of corruption,” retired major general Khan said.
The inquiry report had been submitted to the ministry concerned. “But it was incomplete and insufficient,” he said.
Mr Khan mentioned that BTCL had two departments (engineering and revenue). According to the report, its revenue department looted over Tk 116.6 million through forgery in the 2001-2007 period while the engineering department plundered over Tk 140 million in just one year (2006).
He said even the government institution, now made public limited company, increased its budget through forgery as it raised the budget to Tk 40 million from Tk 16.6 million.
The TAC member alleged that the company predecessor, most of the time, had looted money through changing vouchers. “They changed voucher of Tk 74,400 into Tk 20,74,400 after placing 20 in front of the figure of original voucher. They made another false voucher of Tk 21,13,200 from original voucher of Tk 123,200,” he said citing the probe findings.
Source: Financial Express
Ericsson to help Bangla Trac in int’l call termination
Star Business Desk
Under an agreement signed between the two companies, Ericsson will provide operational readiness and manage the day-to-day operations of the new wireline network providing gateway services for incoming and outgoing international traffic.
By partnering with Ericsson, Bangla Trac is able to launch it’s international gateway services quickly, with high quality and performance, allowing it to reduce costs while maintaining customer satisfaction, said a statement.
Tarique E Haque, CEO of Bangla Trac Communications, said: “Our commitment is to provide customers with high-quality, flexible and reliable international gateway services.”
“The combination of services and technology from Ericsson enables us to reduce costs and focus on our customers’ needs by launching services faster and more efficiently,” said Arun Bansal, managing director of Ericsson Bangladesh.