ISLAMABAD ( BMZ REPORT )
Minister of State for Information Technology Ms. Anusha Rehman Khan has chaired a follow up meeting regarding monitoring of Grey Traffic under ICT arrangements at MoIT today. Federal Secretary for IT Mr. Akhlaq Ahmad Tarar, Chairman PTA, Dr. Ismail Shah, Member Telecom and senior officials of MoIT and PTA were also present on the occasion.
The meeting was apprised regarding achievements and challenges faced by the PTA. Thousands of illegal sims have been blocked through sim detection system and, 3,90,000 suspected local IP addresses have also been blocked.
The Minister categorically directed that government is committed to take stringent measures to ensure that all traffic terminating in Pakistan is on legal networks, so that there is no compromise on legal framework for telecom business and financial loss to the exchequer.PTA in collaboration with FIA should continue to raid illegal activities and take it to logical conclusion.
The Minister also directed Chairman PTA to complete comprehensive training of PTA officials on operational aspects of the new system. So that they will be able to operate the monitoring devices effectively and detect all illegal Voip’s. She also desired that all LDIs consortium/legal voice terminating inside the country should be on standard Voip protocols for billing verification and accountability purposes because customized VPNs are being widely used for terminating grey traffic and VOIP gateway are working on dynamic IP addresses allocation.
It was also agreed that devices associated with suspected IP addresses should be identified through IPDRs and radius information and subsequently blocked by the service provider.
PTA will formulate a comprehensive Voip policy framework to handle the issue in view of the newly emerging VOIP trends to further mitigate grey traffic.
We have to work collectively to eradicate this menace of Grey Trafficking in national interest. We have to be more specific and target oriented and should make strenuous efforts to strengthen and augment this telecom sector, Minister added.