Grey traffic: MoIT wants to up the battle against VoIP, VPNs

Suspected IP addresses should be identified through IPDRs and radius information, and blocked by service provider.

ISLAMABAD: As the government continues its battle against grey traffic to bring all voice over internet protocol (VoIP) under the legal framework, the Minister of State for Information Technology Anusha Rahman on Thursday  said that all LDIs consortium, legal voice terminating inside the country should be on standard Voip protocols for billing verification and accountability purposes in addition to a comprehensive VoIP policy.

Chairing a follow up meeting on grey traffic, she was appraised over steps taken to control illegal communication and the challenges faced. She was told that in addition to thousands of SIMs being blocked through a SIM detection system, 390,000 IP addresses had also been blocked to curb grey traffic.

She was further told that customised Virtual Protected Networks (VPNs) were being widely used for terminating grey traffic and VoIP gateway are working on dynamic IP addresses allocation.

Emphasising on the need for zero compromise on legal framework for telecom business, and on financial loss to the exchequer, it was agreed in the meeting that devices associated with suspected IP addresses should be identified through IPDRs and radius information and subsequently blocked by the service provider.

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) will be responsible for formulating a comprehensive VoIP policy framework to handle the issue in view of the newly emerging VoIP trends to further mitigate grey traffic.

Further, PTA, in collaboration with FIA, will continue to raid illegal activities and take it to logical conclusion, Rahman stressed.

Federal Secretary for IT Akhlaq Ahmad Tarar, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) Chairman Dr Ismail Shah, member telecom and senior officials of MoIT and PTA were also present.