The following message is a recent pledge from the Pakistani IT Industry and ICT for Development Communities about a recent step by the national telecom regulatory authority - Pakistan Telecommunications Authority PTA that bans use of VoIP and basic services such as Skype etc. This is a blow to an booming industry of developing country that has reached 2.8 Billion dollars in revenue, including annual exports exceeding $1.4 billion, Pakistan is eyeing to increase the size of this sector to over US$ 11 billion by 2011. (Source: PSEB & WTO)
This is not the first time that PTA has done this but in a time of global economic recession and struggling businesses, this sends out a plea of how governments can affect the ICT growth of their own citizens and businesses at large reducing their own economic growth. Are there any examples out there where countries have done the same crushed their own economic growth options? Is it true that governments want to prevent the growth of their own industries and benefit to the common man whereas the promise of the Internet and ICTs was leap frogging social and economic benefit? Kindly read through and share your thoughts. For an update on the issue, kindly visit or join the Pakistan ICT Policy Monitor at: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/pakistanictpolicy or the message thread at: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/pakistanictpolicy/message/1597 Kindly read the message below: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Jehan Ara <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Sat, Oct 18, 2008 at 8:38 PM Subject: [pakistanictpolicy] IPs being blocked again! To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Some [EMAIL PROTECTED] companies have brought to my attention that their IPs have been blocked for as long as 30 minutes at a time, over the past few days. Their ISPs have told them that the PTA has installed software for packet sniffing of all VoIP users on their networks. They are therefore now insisting that if any voice activity takes place over IP, a license needs to be obtained from the PTA otherwise the following steps will be taken. The first step is blocking internet for 30 minutes as a warning, the second step will be a notice, and the third a fine and then the total blocking of their internet facility . This is of great concern especially to companies who are engaged in BPO and offshore development services, and for all IT and ITES companies servicing customers internationally. As it is, getting and retaining foreign customers is not easy for Pakistani companies and now if we have to forfeit this line of voice communication as well, our exports will certainly take a plunge. The PTA had previously expressed concern over large scale VOIP operations being run to terminate calls and offer services, but this does not explain why a business that has a couple of lines which are being used to stay in contact with customers or for tech support, is being targetted. During a meeting with General Shahzada, the former Chairman of the PTA, a few months ago, I had specifically been told that the PTA did not have any objection to people using VoIP (eg. Skype and Vonage) unless they were offering VoIP services without being licensed. In fact the PTA had circulated a determination, as far back as 2002, which specifically stated that they had decided that Net2Phone would no longer be blocked because it did not impact to any significant degree on the business of PTCL. I wrote to the PTA seeking a clarification on the VoIP policy and asking them to advise all ISPs that using VoIP is not illegal in this country unless one is using it for large scale call termination, and that in such a situation, one needs to be a licensed operator. I told them that this has caused quite a stir in the IT community. The result? I was told that there was a simple solution - the companies should pay Rs. 5,000 and get licensed through PSEB. Their IPs would be registered, IP addresses provided to the PTA and from that stage on, would not be prone to blocking. I still don't understand why. Don't they understand that VoIP should be free for use by individuals and companies? Are they going to block all our IPs next because we use Skype to talk to friends and family? Isn't it time we had a proper VoIP Policy or better still a complete deregulation of VoIP? Or am I being naive? Jehan Ara President [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@digitaldivide.net http://digitaldivide.net/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
