BTRC shuts down RanksTel for 'illegal' VoIP operations
Three officials held

Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) on Friday closed operation of RanksTel for its alleged involvement in illegal VoIP (voice over internet protocol) business, reports UNB.

RAB sources said a joint team of RAB and BTRC officials seized different equipment used for VoIP calls from RanksTel's office during their raid from 5pm Thursday to 8am Friday.

They also arrested RanksTel's general manager (engineering) Sheikh Quamruzzaman, deputy manager (switching) Mominur Rahman and deputy general manager (sales) Karim Iqbal Bhuiyan in this connection.

BTRC officials sealed off the main switch of the company at 9am Friday depriving its nearly 0.3m (three lakh) subscribers of telecommunication service.

Abul Kalam Shamsuddin, chief operation officer of RanksTel, however, claimed that RAB did not find any illegal equipment relating to the VoIP business.

He said a BTRC team came to their main office at Eskaton at about 5pm on Thursday and sought some billing documents.

The team then went to the switching office of RanksTel at Tejgaon and conducted an overnight raid there, Shamsuddin said, adding that they did not find any illegal equipment.

Among the private landline operators, Ranks Telecom Ltd is the market leader.

Preparation for filing a case against the telecom company was going on.