PTA Actions Saves Government Millions of Dollars

PTA Actions Saves Government Millions of Dollars

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has successfully blocked hundreds of servers and gateways of international carriers involved in sending illegal/grey telephony calls to Grey Operators in Pakistan during Eid days.

A senior PTA official said the action has saved the government from suffering a multi-million dollar loss. He said this was done despite lack of resources and some technical problems faced by the Authority substantial grey traffic was checked during Eid.

The volume of international calls coming to Pakistan substantially increase on Eid days and also important for the grey operators as well.

[blockquote cite=”A spokesperson for the Ministry of Information and Technology (MOIT)”] It has been auditing Rs 270 million the amount given for the installation of equipment to check grey telephony. He added that so far no equipment has been installed in the PTA headquarter for this purpose. Once the equipment is installed the MoIT will release the agreed resources.
[/blockquote]

As per the ICH Policy, 0.05 US cent has been allocated for up gradation traffic monitoring to detect and check the illegal call termination. So far no amount has been disbursed to the PTA for enhancement of facilities to keep the systems abreast with latest technological changes in Voice over Internet Protocols (VoIP) telephony.

This is first time that IP addresses of the foreign carriers have been blocked by PTA. Similar mechanisms have already been adopted in different countries to illegal call termination. This move did not damage the grey operator permanently but it spoiled their business on Eid.