[governance] ISPs, PTA lock horns over illegal VoIP

[Fouad Bajwa]

ISPs in Pakistan resist regulator's attempts to impose
authoritarianism over the region's internet as follows:

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\06\18\story_18-6-2009_pg5_7
ISPs, PTA lock horns over illegal VoIP
By Muhammad Yasir

KARACHI: The Internet Service Providers (ISPs) has asked Pakistan
Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to establish its own mechanism to
detect Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) with their funds deposited
in various accounts.

The Internet Services Providers of Pakistan (ISPAK) has played down
PTA directives asking them to set up expensive systems for the
detection and monitoring of illegal voices traffic available unlimited
on internet. Recently, the PTA asked ISPs to detect and monitor all
sorts of voice over traffic and internet protocols recently for the
safeguard of other telecommunication sector.

ISPAK Convener Wahaj us Siraj said PTA has invested a huge amount of
operators’ contribution for installation of such a facility and this
matter has to be tackled by PTA itself instead of passing on
additional burden on ISPs. He said the ISPs could install the VoIP
monitoring and mitigating facility if PTA provides funding for such a
facility as the industry is already in debt due to selling below the
costs and anti competitive practices. There are more than 50 ISPs
operating across the country. As per policy, they contributed 0.5
percent of their revenue to Universal Service Fund (USF); 0.1 percent
on the account of Research and Development and hundreds of thousands
of fee charges for renewal of licences. ISPs cannot take any action
against any customer doing illegal VoIP as they are lacking statutory
powers to do so, he said and added that if PTA informs of illegal
activity done by any customer to the concerned ISP, the ISPs’ action
can only be limited to locking that customer’s account and providing
customer details to PTA.

ISPs also termed PTA’s action of blocking the IP addresses on internet
gateways without any prior notification and evidence as insufficient.
They said they had been suffering badly, which has been brought to the
notice many times in recent past to the regulator.

PTA has its automated blocking of IP addresses that carry illegal
voice traffic that is termination and/or origination of voice packets
in a bid to check grey traffic flowing into the country

On the other hand, Chairman PTA Dr Muhammad Yaseen told Daily Times
that setting up of VoIP system is not a rocket science that could not
be done by ISPs without the assistance of authority.

They only need to install software on their network to block illegal
traffic of voices, which they are reluctant to do, he said adding that
there are scores of culprits violating authority’s law under the very
nose of ISPs. Dr Yaseen added that the authority has warned all the
ISPs again and it has decided to conduct massive operation against all
the illegal traffic users as per prescribed laws. He further said the
ISPs should cooperate with the authority to stop illegal practices
instead of supporting users’ violating watchdog’s laws.

PTA announced publicly that all (registered) call centres should
provide their IP addresses to PSEB to make sure that their voice
traffic is not blocked. Since the inception of technical facility in
May 2008 at the PTA, the IP addresses found to be involved in illegal
activities were being blocked manually and in the process, over 14
million minutes (worth around Rs 100 million) have been saved on
monthly basis. Now these would be automatically blocked if any IP, not
authorised to carry voice is found doing so. Under the current policy,
only LDIs and international call centres are authorised to carry voice
across national boundaries.
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