5 Illegal International Gateway Exchanges Busted - ProPakistani

By Mehwish Khan | 20, Jun 2009 | 5 Comments

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) in collaboration with Federal investigation Agency (FIA) officials has busted five illegal international gateway exchanges in residential areas of Islamabad and Karachi in the last few weeks.

This initiative is a part of the pursuance of its efforts against illegal telecom traffic. PTA detected illegal set-ups through the technical facility installed to monitor the illegal business of telecom throughout the country. Upon investigation and confirmation, PTA Zonal Offices and FIA conducted successful raids at Karachi and Islamabad wherein they seized operational international exchanges.

Chairman PTA Dr Mohammed Yaseen informed that those five illegal operations of grey traffic were causing $1.7 million per month loss to the national exchequer. He further informed that PTA as a regulator was vigilant and would take all measures to stop this unlawful activity.

He also warned all those involved in grey telecom traffic to stop such unlawful activities, otherwise strict action would be initiated against them as per the law.

Ahmed

Dr. Yaseen Sb! You invested millions of people money to monitor illegal grey telephony, what if these providers use Satellite Links (both up & Down links) which are provided by different providers internationally? What your smartness will do then ?

What if some non-standard VOIP ports or Asterik or Skype-PSTN gateway or any uncommon gateways are used ?

Now you can’t do your job so you are pushing ISPs to do your job of monitoring & urguing that why they are reluctant to do that ? Come on, according to which law you are using this authority to force them to do your job for free?

Your smartness will only push Pakistanis abroad to use grey telephony service providers abroad to call Pakistan, still it will not go in government pocket. As far as I know even a labor abroad knows that Internet call is cheap & uses that way. This is your ignorance that costs them atleast 9 US Cents a minute while for Indians it is even free or 0.001 Cent. Believe it or not but search for call rates of different voip providers for India.

You are depriving Pakistanis living abroad of cheap communication (in fact calls to Pakistan) otherwise outgoing calls is best solutions for Pakistani within country to call their loved ones abroad, in this case getting USA & UK numbers are best options, irrespective of where your loved ones are living abroad.

So Dr. Yaseen Sb. stop showing this smartness, you don’t even have a slightest idea that you can’t stop it ever.

Regards,
With Love,
Ahmed.
- KK
  
  But Mr Ahmed,
  You want pakistani government to loose $1.7 million every month just because you want to call pakistan for free(or people living abroad). Your approach to this situation is truly against Pakistans interest. I m sorry if i was not able to understand what you have said in your comment. but in my opinion government is doing a great job, do you know one of government official is gaining millions of dollars by doing this1
  - Ahmed
    
    Dear KK,
    We Pakistanis (living abroad) pay millions of dollars to VoIP providers that do not belong to Pakistan to call at cheap rate to Pakistan because termination charges set by PTA to please PTCL are so high as compared to Indian termination charges. So here we are forced to do this. If PTA charges 1 instead of 10, then not even 1 comes in the pocket of Govt of Pakistan as termination charges due to illegal /grey routes used by these VoIP providers.
    
    So do you think all European Countires, USA, and India are mad to have zero or very less termination charges for their countries ? PTA is following most Arab governments & some poor countries with no international image. In these counties European/USA VoIP providrs are a great success as no one prefers huge calling rates of these operators or huge call rates for calling party.
    
    VoIP is the future, closing VoIP borders isn’t the future.
    
    2nd, if sam practice is dont by an individual running his one port Linksys ATA he will be causing the same millions of dollars to government ?
    
    At last I would say that this investment is a complete wastage of money becuase grey telephony operators in Pakistan can bypass local route by using VPN, fake registration SIM cards of Pakistan. They need to be a little smart, and I am sure those caught weren’t.
Dr Evil

well i think pat 10% to ZOORDARI every thing will be fine….
Rachael

This is interesting.,Bahar