An operative system (OS) is being designed to collect and analyse data from various sources and provide effective solutions to reduce loss of revenue incurred due to grey traffic. The system will consist of four major building blocks whose purpose will be to collect data, analyze it, report it into a meaningful format and then use the results to monitor the traffic. The system will be installed at Pakistan Internet Exchange (PIE).
National ICT Research and Development Fund, a subsidiary of Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunications is executing the project in collaboration with COMSATS Institute of IT (CIIT), Islamabad, at the cost of Rs 13.51 million. Official sources on Tuesday said the project called Automatic Monitoring and Detection System (AMDS) for Grey Traffic is being executed in two steps one being the training of proposed system AMDS and the other being the real-time system that is to be installed at the site, ie PIE.
They said initially only the data collection block (Probe) will be installed at the PIE. The training is done on the reaming three blocks, ie Data analysis (SBDNM), Reporting (SPR) and monitoring of traffic block (TM). All this will be done at the site which will be the CIIT Campus. Once this is achieved the project will proceed towards step two in which this trained system will be installed. Once installed, it will be vigorously tested in real-time environment before being properly launched.
They said in telecommunication business all communication is done through use of some routes. Generally there are three types of routes-White route: where the routes of both source and destination have legal termination, black route: where both source and destination have illegal termination and Grey route: which defines a route that is legal for one country or the party on one end, but illegal on the alternative end.
The sources said thus any traffic that uses grey routes will be termed "Grey Traffic". Grey routes can be identified in terminating network. Normally heavy load in certain network areas or short voice calls or incomplete call information indicates grey trafficking. Grey traffic due to heavy load can be identified through three methods which are Mobile phone (or GSM Gateway) termination, Subscriber Access Line termination and Media Gateway (MGW) in the IP backbone termination mobile phone (or GSM Gateway termination).
Subscriber access line termination results in heavy load in local exchange. MGW in IP backbone termination results in higher load on the MGW and soft switch. Short voice calls is another indicator of grey traffic. These short voice calls are due the repetitive redialling by the customer in hope to get better voice quality thus indicating grey traffic. Grey routed calls have often incomplete information like calling party number, bearer service information, etc. So any such call is termed as grey traffic.
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) defines Grey telephony as the use of illegal gateway exchanges to bypass legal PTCL gateways and terminate/originate international traffic, including through VoIP gateways, GSM gateways, and WLL phones, mobile SIMs or other related equipment. This traffic may then be distributed onwards using WLL and mobile numbers. It is claimed that grey telephony costs loss of over Rs 3 billion annually.