PTA taking steps to curb grey telephony

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has been continuously taking measures to curb grey telephony which includes raids on illegal telecom set ups and whitelisting of Internet Protocols (IP) used to relay legitimate voice traffic.

To safeguard the legitimate voice communication, PTA has issued IP Whitelisting Regulations (Formerly IP whitelisting SoP). IP addresses being used by PTA Long Distance and International (LDI) licensees and PSEB registered call centers are registered (whitelisted) to ensure their uninterrupted voice operations. In this regard, besides PTA LDI licensees, over 600 PSEB registered call centers have so far got their IP addresses whitelisted through PTA.

PTA has already intimated its licensees to ensure that only whitelisted IPs are used for commercial voice services by them and their customers. The IP addresses which are not registered face periodic degradation for commercial voice services. Besides interruption of services, PTA also reserves the right to initiate further necessary action against the offenders as per the legal provisions.

It may be added that users with legitimate voice operations are required to ensure that they only use whitelisted IPs. As per whitelisting procedure, they should approach their Internet Service Provider for initiating whitelisting process with PTA.

Furthermore, PTA on a regular basis takes action against Grey Telephony ranging from identification of grey exchanges for subsequent raid actions to disruption of illegal commercial voice traffic.