Grey trafficking: A hard nut to crack

It has been over a year since a bill was moved in the National Assembly that sought to amend the Telecommunication Act (1996), in order to effectively curb the rampant illegal telecom traffic or grey traffic in Pakistan. The proposed bill, Pakistan Telecommunication (re-organization) Amendment Bill, 2010, is still oscillating between the Ministry of IT and the parliament; while grey traffic continues unabated. The volume of international voice calls terminating in Pakistan has increased considerably over the years. However, analysts believe that illegal operators have undercut the LDI operators, as the former benefits from the APC regime and high settlement rates. Unscrupulous operators offer low rates per minute on international calls as they do not have to pay the APC, taxes and duties levied on licensed operators. Like the rest of the world; running illegal telecom setups (exchanges, gateways, switches and routers) is apparently a lucrative business in Pakistan as well. Unofficial estimates put international incoming traffic terminating in Pakistan at 700 million minutes per month, from legal channels alone. The sheer scale of illegal telecom traffic is said to run into hundreds of millions of dollars per month. Last month, Chairman PTA, while briefing the parliament; acknowledged that the regulators surveillance system could only check 30 percent of international incoming voice traffic; the other 70 percent passes without check. He admitted that the PTA could only detect a limited number of voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) calls, and revealed that both licensed and illegal operators were involved in grey trafficking. The question one may ask is what change would an amended Act bring about? News reports suggest that the amendments are focused on controlling grey telephony and the PTA would be empowered to take strict actions against the violators throughout the country. Currently, the maximum punishment for illegal telecom traffic is a fine worth Rs 100,000 and one-year of imprisonment. New penalties are under discussion. News stories in the past have suggested that various high-ups and influential lobbies are also involved in running the illegal setups. Earlier this week, it was reported that Chairman PTA disclosed to the National Assemblys standing committee on IT & Telecommunications that he was facing life threats from the grey telephony mafia due to his efforts to curb the illegal setups. It now increasingly seems that vested interests have also taken hold here and the amendment bill would likely remain stalled in the foreseeable future. PTA, for its part, has been conducting raids on illegal setups; however, culprits usually get away from the courts due to toothless grey trafficking laws in the country. Some analysts believe that if the amendments enhanced the scope and scale of punitive measures, they would be successful only if PTA augments its surveillance capabilities and remains one step ahead of the illegal operators. Others believe that effective surveillance alone cannot limit the incidence of grey trafficking, and that PTA should do away with the APC regime altogether and allow the LDI operators to employ VoIP technology. As things stand, legislation for effective regulation is in jeopardy for over a year; what to talk of taking bold measures!