State of Telecom Industry in Pakistan

Despite all the progress made by telecom industry and the gradual lowering of rates, it is still not that cheap to pick up the phone and call Pakistan directly from your landline or cell phone from US. Part of it has to do with the high termination rates imposed by Pakistan. In a reent trend, phone companies in US have started to offer a single rate international calling where you can buy a bucket (say 300 minutes) for a flat fee and then call one of the many countries in that plan. Vonage is one of them but Pakistan is not included in their list.

Read more »

Monitoring of voice and data traffic has been a controversial issue in Pakistan because of the cost and effort which will be incurred by the service providers (ISPs, mobile network operators etc). Now PTA has released draft regulations regarding REAL-TIME monitoring of telephony services, with the usual threat of license suspension if a service provider does not comply with the regulation. There should be a debate about whether this is the right approach (see this previous post for background) and concerns over privacy should be addressed.

Monitoring System(s) means a system which includes such equipment and/ or accessories to be installed and deployed for the purpose of monitoring traffic links and also differentiating between type of information streams (voice or data), essential for regulating all telecom landing station licensees and services to be provided by the landing station licensee.

Per PTA regulation, each LDI licensee and Access Providers shall establish the System on its own cost in accordance with these regulations as determined and required by the Authority from time to time at the PTA designated premises.

All landing station and infrastructure licensee(s), shall establish a Monitoring System with its interface to the Authority, on its own cost for the purpose of monitoring of telecommunication traffic (voice and data) within one hundred and twenty days of the notification of these regulations.

I have included an extract of the requirements from the PTA regulation below. I think this will be heavily debated over the coming days.

Any Monitoring system or System deployed shall comprise the mandatory feature of monitoring and controlling grey traffic with the minimum of the following features and shall ensure compatibility to provide such information as required by the Authority, where applicable:
(a) Capability to monitor, control, measure and record traffic in real-time;
(b) Capability for complete signaling record, including but not limited for billing;
(c) Capability to accurately measure the quality of service;
(d) A complete list of the Pakistani customers; and
(e) Complete details of capacity leased by the licensee(s) to their customers.

Further details from the regulation after the break.

Read more »

Its official. Based on the PTA report issued recently, the revenues of long distance companies (LDI) has gone through the roof. This is because PTA implemented the rate of 10 cents per minute for calls to Pakistan from abroad. The reason given by PTA is that this was to lower illegal termination traffic.In reality, this rate fixing has made LDI companies taken advantage of those calling from abroad, mostly expatriate Pakistanis.

Omantel and Qtel also made some impact, though its not likely to be as large.

BrainTel LDI license has been suspended by PTA. Is this the final chapter in the short but adventurous life of the famous 210-nnnn series?

A few years ago someone in Lahore showed me how they could dial a local number (210-nnnn) from Lahore and connect directly to U.S. After a bit of investigation I also signed up for the service. It wasn’t a very consistent or reliable service but having a local number was very convenient. And when it worked, the VOIP technology was absolutely wonderful and very affordable. Soon this service came under the radar and many times it came to the brink of being closed. This time it seems that it is gone for good. It was fun while it lasted.

The dispute between PTA and Braintel (as described in the pdf document) can be the topic of many posts and shows the internal strifes of the LDI industry. Braintel has some bitter complaints agains the ‘cartel’ and how the price of calls to Pakistan are set up.

Here’s one excerpt which shows the point of view of “The Authority”.

The Authority, through the Traffic Monitoring Facility installed for the purpose, noted that (i) it has during the period from 14th May, 2008 to 30th June, 2008, unauthorizedly originated 450,814 international telephony minutes (accounting for 65,482 international telephony calls) and terminated those minutes in different countries through IP address 119.63.130.98 by using SIP over non-standard port 8891 (ii) from 14th May, 2008 to 30th June, 2008 it has also unauthorizedly terminated 2,442,779 international telephony minutes (accounting for 339,917 international telephony calls) in Pakistan through IP address 119.63.130.98 by using SIP over non-standard port 8891 and (iii) the licensee has been using its locally allocated numbers for the Lahore Region (N/S) outside Pakistan by misusing Direct Inward Dialing technique and by mapping its numbers against IP addresses, hence, these numbers are being used globally and more than 50,000 customers of the licencee are using
these numbers in around 77 countries.

In case you are wondering why does it cost so much to call Pakistan, see this great summary post about long distance communication industry in Pakistan from Tariq Mustafa. I’ve included 2 excerpts to provide background but you ought to read the full post.

LDI-backed Anti-voip Move – Now More Evil

When PTCL was a monopoly in telecommunications in Pakistan and in came the cellular operators, positive things happened for the consumers – services improved, rates declined and availability got almost ubiquitous. Of course, the financial success that the cellcos met in Pakistan is an over-stated fact.

The left-behinds in all the high-water mark events mentioned above were the LDI operators who, while started off with great zeal and put in a lot of money too, found the telecoms environment too diluted and with much of undercutting going on. The rates (for termination inside Pakistan) went as low as 1 cent per min for wholesale carriers. A number of LDI operators burnt out in these conditions never to be seen again.

Later, around the beginning of this year (2008), sanity finally prevailed and the LDI operators and the authority decided that it was time to end the next to free rates to Pakistan termination traffic and raised the nominal tariff to 10 cents per minute. This move, which was essentially about LDIs putting their own house in order, alone injected a new life in their business. Salaries for the staff started coming in time and new equipment started being ordered by the operators.

Despite some undercutting, the rates in the international market for wholesale termination inside Pakistan are still above the 7 cents per minute mark and this leaves a considerable room for the operators to keep and take their business forward. According to rough industry estimates, only the recorded business is worth in access of 700 million minutes (or $35 million @ 5c/min) per month (grey traffic not included).

The LDI operators, in an effort to pump more out of this new found oil well, requested en mass the PTA to go after the grey traffic operators and invested in equipment that claims to detect and mitigate voip traffic in real time. This equipment has been on the international exit points in Pakistan. Suspected IP traffic was detected and investigated to see if it grey, or belongs to an un-intimated call center. This stuff was reportedly being done manually so far.

Read more »