Dhaka, July 31 (bdnews24.com)—From Sunday, the costs of telephone calls to most overseas destinations will be reduced, according to the website of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC).

These lower prices are part of the decision by the BTRC to bring all calls under a single platform - with callers from now on having to dial 00 to make international calls. Callers will no longer be able to make calls using 012 prefix.

The BTRC website shows the revised tariff for calls to India using both land lines and mobile phones will be Tk 12 per minute, reduced from Tk 15-18 per minute.

There will be a tariff of Tk 6 per minute for calling the following countries: Canada, the US, Argentina, the UK, Ireland, France, Italy, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, China and Hong Kong.

Calls made to land lines telephones of the following destinations would be charged at Tk 8 per minute: Australia, the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Austria , Belgium, Cyprus, Greece, Turkey ,Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, and South Korea.

Tariffs for making calls to the Middle Eastern states of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, Qatar and Syria will range from Tk 12 to Tk 18.

A BTCL official told bdnews24.com on Saturday that even though the rates of calls by dialling 012 were low, the quality of service was not good.

"At the same time BTCL subscribers had to spend more money on their regular ISD calls. This is why the 012 system is being discontinued," an official of BTRC told bdnews24.com, preferring anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the press.

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