1 INTERNATIONAL AND DOMESTIC CALL CENTER IN SAME PREMISE/ PLATFORM WITHOUT RISK OF ILLEGAL VoIP –CONTEXT BANGLADESH Ishtiak Al Mamoon 1 and A.K.M.Muzahudul Islam 2 Malaysia-Japan International Institute of Technology (MJIIT) Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 1 ishtiak.mamoon@gmail.com, 2 akmmislam@ic.utm.my ABSTRACT The emergence of Voice-Over-IP (VoIP) technology is creating a major discontinuity in telecommunications. Illegal VoIP or gray call pays a great impact on Bangladesh’s voice market. Recently, call centers in Bangladesh have started using low cost IP telephony services which minimize the overhead telecom expense. However, BTRC in Bangladesh permits to use IP telephony for both domestic and international call center operation. Thus there is always chance of performing illegal VoIP. This is elaborately discussed in this paper. The aim of this article is to find out some solutions to ensure that the call centers can be run smoothly without any risk. In this article, a number of proposition and methodology have been described both in legal and technical solutions, which include some new guidelines, measuring the technical security parameter for IP telephony, a real time monitoring system including the trunk, data/voice flow, packet filtering and call center architectural schemes. By adopting the proposed scheme the call center operators and governing authority can significantly reduce illegal VoIP if the domestic and international call center can operate from same premise, same server room, same call application cloud and even same IP Local area Network. Keywords - Illegal VoIP, call center, SIP, ILDTS policy, CDR monitoring, BTRC. 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1. Background Call center and recent status of Bangladesh. In recent decades, there has been explosive growth in the number of companies that provide consumer services via the voice in Bangladesh. These call/contact center technology based BPO mainly providing Telemarketing and customer care processes. Recently India and Philippine are pioneer in BPO sector. There are mainly two types of BPO exists, international and native /domestic business services. Most organizations with customer contact – private companies, as well as government and emergency services – have reengineered their infrastructure to include from one to many call centers, either internally managed or outsourced. [1-2], [9]. BTRC allowed setting up of call centers in April 2008. However, such business started springing up this year. After receiving their licenses only three and a half years ago, more than 80 per cent of the country’s call centers have gone out of business. This has created a void in the potential sector, which was supposed to earn a considerable amount of foreign currency every year, leaving it unutilized and unexplored [8- 10]. According to BTRC, licenses were issued to 426 companies in 2008 under the categories of call centers, hosted call centers and call centre service providers. Out of them 337 have surrendered their licenses and do not operate any more. Among the rest, only 47 international and 19 local call centers are currently in operation. Last year, 55 international and 17 local agencies were operating. Incidentally, steps have been taken by the authorities to fulfill three out of four demands that the BTRC in a report had placed before the parliamentary committee of MOPT in June 2010 to enhance the business. Government, MOPT and BTRC have jointly taken some steps to reduce the cost of Bandwidth, continuous power ensure to call center and arrangements for training of personnel in spoken English. However, business of international voice BPO was not so successful in Bangladesh. International call center provider faces problem to do business due to many issues like no redundant transmission/submarine cable, skilled agent unavailability, and scam business. [8-14]. The recent call center business status in Bangladesh is not doing very well. Especially international call center operations are not able to make money. And the domestic BPO are doing well. And international voice BPO entrepreneurs are interested to do domestic but facing some legal issues As per Call center guideline domestic and international call center are not supposed to establish in same premise [8]. On May 4, 2011, a meeting held with BTRC and Bangladesh Association of Call Centre and Outsourcing (BACCO) and the only one agenda was regarding that issue. In the meeting, the first author of this paper (on behalf BACCO was) presented a technical solution that overcomes the main problem “Illegal VoIP termination issue”. 1.2. Illegal VoIP issues Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a much-talked issue in the Information Communication Technology (ICT) sector, especially in Bangladesh. It is generally believed that overseas call termination using VoIP started during 2000 when the use of VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) was liberalized with the aim of promoting software export. Until Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC) formed in 2002, the regulatory functions of telecommunications sector had been overseen by the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications (MOPT). Under the guidance of MOPT, the then government operator