PTA Issues Show Cause Notice to Telecard for Reporting Incorrect Traffic Details

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has issued a show cause notice to Telecard for not complying with the rules by providing incorrect information to authority.

Show cause notice said that Telecard did not provide any international incoming traffic details to PTA from October 2007 September 2008; while according to APC rules it is explicitly told that all telecom companies must provide Call Detail Record (DCRs) to PTA on monthly basis.

As per show cause notice, on repeated reminders from PTA, Telecard, at last, provided international incoming call record details for whole year on October 21, 2008 – out of which PTA analyzed incoming traffic of only July and August 2008. When compared between Vigilance Directorate, It was found that a total of 15,265,595 minutes were reported less to the Commercial Affair Division – PTA, in order to hide international minutes.

Notice further said that when this international incoming traffic of Telecard was compared with it’s interconnect partners, it was found that company reported 3,804,927 lesser minutes to PTA. Furthermore, Authority also figured out that Telecard was found involved in altering international incoming traffic as domestic traffic.

Show cause notice included other elements as well, such as; Telecard is using its geographical number to mask international calling party numbers as domestic traffic, which were detected by PTA as much as 6,780,789 minutes in total.

Through this show cause notice, Telecard is asked to explain its view point before December 12, 2008. It merits mentioning here that legal action such as fine or cancellation of license as per law is possible, if allegations are not justified by Telecard.