The new system is working efficiently and has the ability to even remotely block illegal gateways. If that doesn’t work, the authority then files a complaint with the FIA that conducts the raid. PHOTO: FILE
KARACHI:
In what may be seen as a positive step towards controlling the grey traffic, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has equipped itself with a more efficient system to identify international calls illegally terminated by the country’s gateway exchanges.
A recent raid on the office of Wisecom, one of Pakistan’s 14 long distance international (LDI) operators based in Islamabad, demonstrates that the newly acquired technology has already started to pay off.
PTA and Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) raided Wiscom’s office in the federal capital on Monday. The telecom sector’s regulatory body found that the company was illegally terminating international telephony traffic in Pakistan – a practice commonly known as grey traffic – thus evading government taxes in excess of $11 million a year or $31,000 a day.
The company, according to a PTA official, was found terminating approximately 360,000 illegal international minutes on a daily basis, which were shown as local traffic thus evading government levies on international calls landing in Pakistan.
This was possible with the help of a new technology – grey traffic monitoring equipment – that PTA installed early this October. The system is capable of identifying international minutes that are shown as local minutes by the gateway exchanges involved in grey trafficking.
Using the newly installed system, PTA analysed Wisecom’s traffic patterns and found anomalies, thus filing a complaint with FIA. Later on, the two regulators conducted a joint raid on the company’s head office.
The acquisition of this new technology by the telecom regulator, which has failed to control grey traffic so far, may help the government increase its revenues.
According to industry estimates reported by The News in its April 7th edition, grey market for telephony – which is about 400 million minutes per month or more than 50% of the overall monthly international traffic coming to Pakistan – causes over Rs3.5 billion or $35 million in losses a year to the national exchequer.
This loss is caused by illegal gateway exchanges that bypass legal gateways to terminate or originate international telephony traffic by using voice-over-internet protocol (VoIP) gateways, wireless local loop (WLL) phones and mobile phone SIMs.
The old systems were obsolete, making it easy for telecom gateways to bypass the system without coming onto the regulator’s radar, the PTA official said.
PTA had installed and tested the new grey traffic monitoring equipment one month ago, the official said. Although it identified several illegal gateways this was the first case, since the installation of the new system that a licensed LDI operator was found involved in grey telephony traffic.
Explaining, the official said there are two types of gateways that terminate international calls in the country. The first type is licensed LDI operators who have legal mandate to terminate international calls in Pakistan while the other type is the illegal exchanges or gateways without a government license.
Although Wisecom had a license to terminate international calls, it was under-declaring its traffic by showing international minutes as local traffic, the official said, which leads to tax evasion.
The new system is working efficiently and has the ability to even remotely block illegal gateways, however if that doesn’t work, the authority then files complaint with FIA that conducts the raid on the offender’s offices, he said.
Earlier in October, Minister of State for Information and Technology Anusha Rehman directed PTA to block all illegitimate IPs being used for grey trafficking with the help of the new equipment.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 6th, 2013.
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COMMENTS (7)
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please do some work with power crisis, poverty, currency and the FBR thieves, may be only 20% of population knows about the VOIP and grey traffic but about 80% population need ROTI BIJLI and Gase, WATCHOUT the majority otherwise once again someone kick this government down to the ground. . Finally Ptcl got 150,000 new customers after making a all this huge DRAMA with wisecom. wisecome has still huge number of customers and its better then ptcl and other pvt companies.
The incumbent government of PMLN is taking the right steps in telecom, unlike Rahman Malik of previous regime who had his business interests in grey trafficking. Will the FIA or NAB ever enquire & recover the money Rahman Malik has grabbed due to banning mobile phone services & complicity with grey trafficking??
@fffffffffffff..........ofcorse you know nothing about the matter and are commenting just for the sake of it........the discussion is not about if VOIP is illegal or not........its about illegal gateway exchange operating without licenses and legal exchanges misreporting there traffic to avoid Gov tax.....this is an illegal industry worldwide and in our case Gov of Pak is loosing a large sum because of this........ The real discussion is that our Gov has imposed out of this world taxes on international calls which should be revised.
Backward government trying in vain to enforce backward rules. VOIP is not illegal. High time they embraced new technology instead of trying to fight it. The first step is to divest the remaining shares they hold in PTCL because this whole business is being done to enforce PTCL's monopoly on international calls. This monopoly can no longer be maintained by government fiat.
The regulator has done an excellent work, which has to be done long, long time back. However it is not only grey traffic of calls, but an Identity Theft which should simultaneously be taken up by the Cyber Security/Cyber Crime Cell FIA and matter of National Security First and then the loss of revenue for investigation by the respective agencies/authorities. Having been with the UN Identity Management Focus Group, ITU, Geneva the regulatory authority of the respective member administration/Government being a bonafide member which the regulator can officially seek help lhow to curb the Identity Management related matter in Cyber Crime, which is condemned worldwide. Most importantly the users of such grey traffic, originator, terminator, caller, called parties may possibly be a gang and could be involved in illegal activity, or terrorism. Since their calls are not monitored and hence they are immune to make the conversation a free ride. Cyber Crime Management is ignored in Pakistan, and may please be revoked with full enforcement of this caller, called people, terminator, caller all. The archives of the illegal traffic may also help Government clues of individuals using this and the terminator, and caller.
Whole World has allowed Voip calls but Pakistan is going against the system. No doubt these people has nothing constructive but just to distroy what there is. We were better of to be a part of another country. Atleast there was a freedom to people. Get ready for skype viber and mobile emails ban as well. Sick
Good work....imagine the amount lost during last 5 years of last govt....this has exposed last govt governance issue....they were only interested in looting and filling their pocket....