Grappling with the issue of grey traffic resulting in financial losses of over Rs 3 billion annually, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on Friday busted in Lahore. Teams led by the PTA, including Network Surveillance & Security teams of the PTCL and FIA, unearthed an illegal international gateway exchange, set up in a residential area of Lahore Cantonment.
According to details, a complaint was lodged with PTA by NSS of PTCL regarding involvement of an Internet Protocol (IP) address in illegal activities. On investigation it came to knowledge that an illegal international gateway exchange was operating in the Officers Colony, near Cavalry Ground. It was sealed after a successful raid.
The setup was using 512 Kbps bandwidth for international connectivity while 7 GSM SIMs were being used for local termination. The confiscated equipment included two VoIP gateways, 19 Telular devices along with other accessories and scratch cards worth millions of rupees. Usman Mir, a computer science graduate, was arrested from the place. It is estimated that the setup was causing revenue loss worth millions of rupees.
It may be recalled that PTA had claimed that the 'grey traffic' volume had increased with the expansion and advancement of telecommunication technology and had caused a loss of Rs 3 billion last year.
Before deregulation of the telecom industry, the PTCL had its own arrangement in the form of NSS, which worked effectively as per its scope of operations. After deregulation, several players were granted licences for terminating/originating international traffic thus increasing bypass possibilities.
The 'grey traffic' is due to bypassing of legal gateways of a country and largely prevalent in the developing countries, which deprive government exchequer of big revenues in the shape of levies like licence fees, taxes and other applicable charges.
PTA evolved some regulatory and technical measures to curb this menace, such as Establishment of Vigilance Cell in PTA in July 2005, reduction in Accounting Settlement Rates (ASR) by 38.6 percent during last one year to discourage illegal operators, issuance of policy guidelines to telecom operators, evaluation of technical solutions for automated detection and conducting raids against illegal operators saving thereby Rs 650 million during last one year and reconstitution of Vigilance Committee by Ministry of IT & Telecom.
PTA also established a cell for development of CDR analysis capability wherein data received from operators is analysed for misreporting/concealment of traffic, called CDR Management & Analysis (CMA). The PTA conducted 22 raids in 2005, wherein 17 operators were arrested and 36 VoIP gateways, along with associated equipment, were confiscated. Moreover, 478 GSM SIMs and 161 WLL sets were also recovered during the raids, indicating change in trend from fixed to mobile in terms of local terminations. Rs 650 million was saved on account of these operations.
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