ISLAMABAD ( ABRAR MUSTAFA )
Mr. waleed Ershiad Ceo PTCL hit back Ministry telecom ( MOIT) and Telecom Authority ( PTA ) to getting stay order against the withdrawal of ICH policy from sindh high court with the help of other operator Star link. Sindh high issued order to Federation Of Pakistan and Telecom Authority are restrained from taking any coercive action against the petitioner or implementing the operation directive dated 17.6.2014, referred to above. The petitioner submits that Moit issued policy directive without consultation with the LDIs in violation of Policy Directives. It is contrary to the earlier policy directive, in intervention of law, illegal, void and ab-initio. Sindh high court issued stay order against policy directive and issued notice Moit and PTA for next hearing.
Earlier Ministry of IT has taken major policy initiative to encourage and promote competition amongst telecom service providers in spirit of the De-regulation Policy. Ministry of Information Technology has issued a directive to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to discontinue the International Clearing House (ICH) regime established through an earlier directive to substantially deregulate the international incoming traffic terminating on Pakistani networks. This directive of the MoIT will be effective from 1st of August 2014 giving sufficient time to Long Distance International (LDI) operators for discharging their commitments under the prevalent ICH arrangement.
Ministry of IT had issued an ICH Policy Directive earlier on 13thAugust, 2012, to restructure the way international telecom traffic is terminated into Pakistan.The ICH policy mandated routing of all incoming traffic through a single gateway operated by PTCL as the head of the LDI ICH consortium.However, the policy did not achieve its objectives as it led to exponential increase in call rates for oversees Pakistanis and high volumes of Grey Traffic.
LDI operators are not satisfied with Ministry of telecom directive they approached Sindh High Court and get stay order which copy is attached below …..
