[Pakistan] PTCL yet to lift ban on Internet telephony

["Irfan Khan" <khania2@super.net.pk>]

[source: Comp-list mailing list]

PTCL yet to lift ban on Internet telephony

The News, By Imran Ayub 1/3/2003 http://www.jang-
group.com/thenews/jan2003-daily/03-01-2003/business/b1.ht m 


KARACHI: The Pakistan Telecommunications Company Limited (PTCL) has 
still not lifted ban on Internet telephony service, despite expiry of 
deadline set by Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA).  

The PTA - telecom regulator in the country - on November 16, 2002 
announced its determination to lift the ban imposed by PTCL on 
Net2Phone and similar websites, providing Internet telephony 
facilities to net browsers from January 1, 2003.  

Local Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have termed such action of 
the state-owned telecoms company as illegal and unilateral.  

The PTA in early 2002 put a stop to Internet telephony by imposing a 
ban on 17 websites, which facilitated calls to North America 
bypassing the PTCL.  

PTCL officials argue that under the Pakistan Telecommunication (Re-
organisation) Act 1996, basic telephone services were the prerogative 
of the phone utility.  

The Act declares that "basic telephone services mean the provision of 
any telecommunications service, which consists of two-way live voice 
telephone service in digital form or otherwise over any fixed 
switched network or between base stations or switches or modes of any 
public mobile switched network; real-time transmission or reception 
of facsimile images over a public fixed switched network; 
international telephony service; and the lease of circuits for the 
provisions of the services specified."  

However, after strong uproar from country's ISPs and general public 
the PTA in mid-October 2002 called a meeting inviting PTCL and 
Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan (ISPAK), the 
representative body of 112 ISPs in the country, to prove their claims 
in favour or against the ban on Internet telephony.  

After the meeting, chairman PTA assured the ISPs that if the PTCL 
could not prove that the ban was boosting its business within a week, 
it would be removed. However, the week has long passed, but the PTA 
has yet to lift the ban.  

Later, the PTA announced to continue the ban till December 31, 2002 
and remove it from January 1, 2003.  

But the ISPs complained that despite the expiry of PTA deadline no 
action has been taken. They said that PTA policies are just for 
protecting PTCL's monopoly.