VOIP Blocked in Pakistan Comments

------- Forwarded message follows -------
From: "Salman Ansari"
To:
Subject: RE: PTA is Blocking Client Live IPs ( VoIP )
Date sent: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:37:03 +0500
Send reply to: telecom-grid-pakistan@googlegroups.com


My two pennies:

This IP blocking is an extension of the same senseless thing that Etisalat does in the prison they call UAE. Once they bought PTCL they pressured the Pakistan government to stop issuing licences for anything and the government quite happily went and gave verbal order (since this was against the written policy!) to PTA to stop new licences. This was specifically meant to target Zong (China Mobile) from getting an LDI licence, when all the other cellular operators have this facility within their own group. This is causing a lot of diplomatic crisis between Pakistan and China and despite the PM signing a document asking PTA to issue this, a phone call still stalls this. You can see a part of the manifestation of this and many other slights we have been giving China by the way Zadari was treated this time in China.

These mysterious phone calls are also the cause of this promiscuous IP blocking, despite the deliberate windfall the grey market operators are getting from the increase in international termination rates. I am sure when one makes an analysis of the incoming traffic and compares this with the earlier volumes, then calculates the money to be coming in from APC for the USF, prepare to be surprised at the outright theft taking place. Also mysteriously, the vigilance of this illegal traffic is quietly gone to sleep as the people involved do not want to be caught by some poor underling who can then trace these back to their relatives.

This VoIP blocking is a part of the same crazy, senseless and silly exercise. I wish we would finally have someone in the government that was really interested to see the damage being done to the industry and growth of technology use by the common man by such actions: by default and by design (e.g. 31% tax on all phone calls, tax on cell phones making this no longer a common man’s tool)…

Salman