ISLAMABAD (October 20 2006): Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has claimed that the grey traffic volume expanded with the advancement of telecommunication technology resulting in a loss of Rs three billion last year. Before deregulation of the telecom industry, it said that PTCL had its own arrangement in the form of Network Surveillance & Security (NSS) region, which worked effectively as per their scope of operations. After deregulation, several players were granted licenses for terminating/originating international traffic thus increasing bypass possibilities.

This was stated in the Annual Report 2006 published by PTA. The report further claimed that a loss of Rs three billion was incurred during last year owing to such illegal practices. Explaining the grey traffic, the report said that this 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 license fees, taxes and other applicable charges.

PTA has taken 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 hence elimination of grey telephony, conducting raids against illegal operators saving thereby Rs 650 million during last one year and reconstitution of vigilance committee by Ministry of IT & Telecom, whose convenor would be chairman PTA, it added.
Source: Business Recorder
Date:10/20/2006