VoIP Call Recording Prompting Changes

Accordingto Pakistani publication The Express Tribune, Voice over Internet Protocol "poses a threatening scenario for existing telecommunication firms across the globe."

The journal notes that in the past year alone

The journal notes that in the past year alone, the Federal Investigation Agency, in conjunction with the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, "has cracked down on over 29 illegal VoIP gateways," calling it "a testament to the lure of the business."

The number of registered VoIP gateways, however, is few and far between owing to regulatory hurdles and high licensing fee, as the Express Tribune points out: "The illegal gateways are able to compete in terms of price with large telecoms by avoiding taxation and licensing costs but more importantly, because of the fact that VoIP is far more cost effective for international calls than conventional telephone exchange systems."

Basically speaking, it’s such a cost advantage that people will find a way to make it happen, especially in countries with monolithic nationalized telecommunications monopolies charging monopolistic prices. Such dinosaurs are often healthy sources of revenue for the government, which does not like the fact that VoIP means users can bypass their creaky service and inflated fees.

The Express explains

As the Express explains, "The setup for VoIP gateways exploits cheap Internet-based calls through a fairly simple mechanism. Since calls from one computer to the other are free, these gateways use this ability to connect international gateways to each other."

And to connect the phone to the Internet, "these gateways use thousands of SIM cards to make the connection from the computer to the land line or other mobile phones, thus completing the connection from one phone to another."

VoIP gateways in Pakistan, according to the journal, "sell their services either through illegal phone cards or they operate in the shadows by offering their services to other legitimate gateways or telecoms. More often than not, these gateways will overload a slow Internet connection with dozens of calls in order to cut costs. This explains the poor call quality on some of the cheaper phone cards."

Yeah, and not that this reporter experienced grossly overloaded Internet connections living overseas either, to the point where getting a connection at all was hit or miss. Never happened.

The Express says

But as the Express says, VoIP-based phone card companies "are slowly evaporating as PTA’s collaborations with international partners to locate and identify the offenders have helped reduce the illegal activity. At the same time, larger telecoms also now employ VoIP gateways to offer competitive pricing and marginalize the illegal ones out of the market."