A discussion on Alaap

It was 2015. The land phone usage of the state-owned Bangladesh Telecommunication Company Limited (BTCL) kept falling sharply. Golam Fakhruddin Ahmed Chowdhury, the newly appointed managing director of BTCL, with a master's in Information Technology from the University of South Australia, devised a new plan to revitalise the usage of land phones. 

GFA Chowdhury took the initiative of making a phone dialer so that land phone users would not need to go to the phone to make or receive a call. He consulted with some local companies who made demo dialers. In the meantime, he was transferred to another government agency.  

"I wanted to make a dialer so that people can make or receive landline calls using their mobile phone," remembers GFA Chowdhury, who is now a retired government official.

Later BTCL decided to take his idea of a dialer to a larger scale and took the initiative to develop a WhatsApp and Viber-like application for its customers. Local software company REVE Systems made the application.    

In 2021, while WhatsApp, Viber and Telegram were still dominating the Bangladeshi market with instant messaging, free calls over the internet as well as video calls, the state-owned land phone operator Bangladesh Telecommunication Company Limited (BTCL) finally rolled out its Bangladeshi version 'Alaap'. 

Bangladesh Telecommunication Company Limited (BTCL) officials said that Alaap has been doing good business. Over the last two and a half years, Alaap has seen more than 12 lakh downloads from Google Play. 

At the same time, BTCL officials said that out of all its users, only 15% use the application regularly. The remaining 85% of users use the application occasionally. To make it more attractive, the government has decided to cut the call rate of Internet Protocol Telephony Service Providers (IPTSP), which includes Alaap.  

Any smartphone user can install the application from Google Play and use it like WhatsApp and Viber. If a person wants to get registered with Alaap, they will need an existing mobile phone number and a copy of his or her NID. Like WhatsApp and Viber, customers can register while sitting in their homes. At the end of the process, the BTCL will provide new customers with BTCL's new virtual phone numbers.  

Talking and chatting from 'Alaap' to 'Alaap' using the internet is free. But when it comes to making phone calls to a subscriber of any mobile or landline operator who is not using Alaap, the caller will have to pay the bills, at the same time as having paid for internet connectivity.

Users can make calls to any mobile or landline at 40 paisa per minute with a one-second pulse and a 15% VAT.  

In the beginning, the call rate was 30 paisa per minute. However, within three months BTCL was asked by the BTRC to raise the call rate to 40 paisa per minute, as the floor value of the mobile operators is 45 paisa per minute. 

What about Alaap's business?

BTCL officials said that at the time of taking up the Alaap project, they projected that the Alaap would see around one million downloads. They projected that the number of Alaap's subscribers would stand at around 50-60 thousand within one year of its inception. 

Nizam Uddin Ahmed, Manager of Product Development at BTCL said the number of verified users is now more than 12 lakh as of 23 August 2023. There are still 32,000 who have not been verified properly. "It is the highest number of customers for a single product of BTCL in its history," said Nizam Uddin Ahmed.

However, Mir Mohammed Morshed, General Manager (Public Relations) said that 15% of their customers use the application on a regular basis, while others use Alaap occasionally. 

Even though officials said that the BTCL's calling application is doing good business, MM Morshed did not want to disclose either their revenue or profit figures, claiming that their competitors will get the information.    

The revenue is mainly generated when people use the application to make direct phone calls. However, BTCL does not get any payment if both users communicate using the internet. 

When asked why people would use Alaap when there are WhatsApp, Viber, Telegram and many other competitors on the market? He said "I would not say that our quality of communication is very good. But it is good; as a result, people are downloading it for use," said Nizam Uddin Ahmed. 

He said that the competitive advantage is the brand value of BTCL, "People trust BTCL as it is a government agency." The local payment system is another competitive advantage in the existing market. 

"The local currency is the mainstay of the growth of the subscribers," said Nizam Uddin Ahmed. 

In the beginning, BTCL had found it difficult to maintain the quality of the communication, including having issues with call drops and disconnections, because they had underestimated the response and the resulting numbers of people that would subscribe to the application. Later on, they increased their capacity by applying to the telecommunication regulatory body, Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC).  

What users say

According to Google statistics, over the last two years, BTCL's calling app Alaap has been downloaded more than 10 lakh times. More than 29 thousand users have so far provided ratings and reviews of the application. The calling application received an overall rating of 3.6. Interestingly, more than 50 per cent of all the ratings are five-star ratings. 

The customers have given mixed reviews about the function of the application on Google Play. On August 20, a customer named Barki Imam left a five-star rating with a review on Google Play. 

"Love this app. It is now stable and without bugs. Call quality is also good. [The] only problem is that it is not available from outside of Bangladesh," Barki Imam wrote in the review section in Google Play. 

Five days later, on August 26, 2023, Noor Mohammad, another user, gave a one-star rating and wrote a review. 

"I can't recharge it from BKASH, Nagad. All the call buttons are not working. (Continue, Save {Error response from Server}) Also it offers poor quality paid voice calls," Noor wrote. "I feel very much disappointed. Please fix the issues."

Is there any future potential?

One can communicate WhatsApp to WhatsApp. On the other hand, one can make a call to other phone operators from a Viber application besides a Viber-to-Viber call and message, but you need foreign currency to make a phone call using Viber. 

"Our aim was to make an application with which users can communicate like WhatsApp. At the same time, they can make phone calls to any phone and mobile operators," said Nizam Uddin Ahmed.

Nizam Uddin Ahmed said that after the launch of the new application, some YouTubers published reviews on YouTube about the features of the application, and as a result there was a surge of new users. 

"YouTube Channel Sohag360 published a review about the features of the applications and people received the review with great enthusiasm. It spread very fast," said Nizam Uddin Ahmed.

He also said that one can install the Alaap application on their desktop and laptop too. 

Nizam Uddin Ahmed said that there are many features in Alaap that have not yet been launched. For example, it can be used as an advertising platform and there is a video-on-demand platform in the application. He said that as there are some regulatory as well as administrative issues for launching those features, they have not launched them as yet. 

"As Alaap is giving us direct revenue, we are happy with it for the time being," said Nizam Uddin Ahmed. "However, we are at present only providing 10% to 20% of Alaap's full features to our users."

Alaap cannot be downloaded globally yet. Bangladeshi migrant workers, a potentially large user base, cannot download and communicate through Alaap. People cannot communicate with WhatsApp in Saudi Arabia, while one cannot communicate with WhatsApp and Viber in China, and can only use WeChat. In most cases, Bangladeshi migrant workers communicate with the IMO app. 

"If it goes global, the number of users will automatically increase," said Nizam Uddin Ahmed. 

Telecom Minister Mustafa Jabbar told The Business Standard that they are reviewing the Internet Protocol Telephony Service Providers (IPTSP) existing call rate and seeking to lower it. He said that it will help increase the number of users of Alaap.  

"We have taken the decision to lower the call rate to 35 paisa per minute," said Mustafa Jabbar. "According to our estimate, the service will then be attractive for users."

When asked about taking the Alaap international, Mustafa Jabbar said that they had no plans to take it to the global stage.