State of Telecom Industry in Pakistan

Continuing the discussion on VOIP in developing countries and in particular in Pakistan, this post looks at the issues with regulating VOIP and the Grey telephony market. Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) defines Grey telephony as: the use of illegal gateway exchanges to bypass legal PTCL gateways and terminate/originate international traffic, including through VoIP gateways, GSM gateways, WLL phones, mobile SIMs or other related equipment. This traffic may then be distributed onwards using WLL and mobile numbers. It is claimed that gery telephony costs losses of over Rs. 3 billion annually.

Of course the laws regarding unauthorized or illegal use of VOIP vary from country to country. Developed countries regulate the technology to protect consumers and to encourage competition. Developing countries view VOIP as a legal and revenue issue and try to exert control over it. Many times its the law which is vague and does not clearly specify clearly when VOIP is allowed and when its not legal.  Last year in Pakistan there was lot of hue and cry when a software company in Islamabad was harassed on suspicion of illegal VOIP activity - it proved to be a completely baseless allegation. See this article for a good roundup of the story and for the different scenarios of VOIP usage in Pakistan. This kind of blatant use of authority and regulatory uncertainty combined with lack of technical knowledge by the authorities is a major obstacle for VOIP adoption and hurts the business deeply. Operators deserve to have a clear and predictable regulatory framework that helps to guarantee returns on investment.  Please note that the picture above of a VOIP lab (courtsey Flickr) is just for illustration.

In the paper Future of voice and VOIP, referred to in my last post there is some interesting discussion which I’ve included below with my comments.

Grey markets can offer cheaper rates because of the high profit margins that may be charged by incumbents that enjoy a monopoly (such as PTCL which had a monopoly a few years ago). For example, a caller might have to pay the 100 Rs for an international call that costs the incumbent operator about 3 rupees. Against this background, and despite legal crackdowns in various countries, the grey market looks set to flourish in Africa. According to Russell Southwood of Balancing Act, in most African countries the grey markets can be substantial (accounting for between a quarter and a third of international call revenues), and this has exerted strong downward pressure on prices.

Here’s some more commentary from the report about Pakistan’s VOIP situation:

PTA has issued technology-neutral licenses. VoIP services may be offered by Long Distance & International (LDI) and Local Loop (LL) licensees. 11 companies in Pakistan offered VoIP in 2005. Some new operators are looking to deploy IP-based networks and PTA is working on the necessary arrangements to tackle issues of QoS, numbering plan, internet telephony and costing methodologies etc. ISPs are not allowed to offer VoIP.

ISPs are licensed as either Electronic Information Service (EIS) or Non-Voice Communication Network Service (NVCNS) providers, neither of which permits licensees to allow voice over their data circuits.

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