KATHMANDU, Jan. 9 -- The illegal operation of voice over internet protocol (VOIP) call bypass has come down drastically in recent weeks. According to telecom operators, around 90 percent of the international calls received in Nepal are made legally, thanks to the crackdown by the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) of the Nepal Police.
Till four months ago, only around 50 percent of the calls were legal, resulting in losses to government revenue amounting to millions.
The four major telecom service operators were suffering a loss of over Rs 600 million in revenue each month because of the use of illegal call bypass by racketeers. Monthly losses have declined to around Rs 150 million.
Telecom giant Nepal Telecom, through which 60 percent of all the VOIP calls received in Nepal come, has seen remarkable growth in recent days. According to telecom operators, calls amounting to 180 million minutes are received in Nepal each month.
"We have witnessed a growth in incoming traffic by 30-40 percent," said Surendra Prasad Thike, spokesperson of Nepal Telecom. He added that they had blocked around 150,000 NT SIM cards involved in illegal call bypass through VOIP and they were committed to curbing this illegal practice. Ncell has also blocked around 100,000 SIM cards since September 2009. "We also took action against those sales agents who were found to be irresponsible while selling SIM cards," said Sanju Koirala, corporate communication manager of Ncell.
After May 2007, police have raided operators in 25 locations and nabbed 23 Nepalis and 9 Bangladeshis involved in the racket. Similarly, police have seized various equipment and 6,189 SIM cards. Among which, 1,854 were of NT, 4,128 of Ncell, and 207 of United Telecom.
"Following our action, the income of the operators has gone up by around Rs 500 million in recent months," said CIB chief Rajendra Singh Bhandari. "I talked to telecom operators today as well. They said that now 160 million minutes of calls were coming legally." Each month, an average 180 million minutes of calls are made to Nepal through the use of VOIP, in which now nearly 90 percent come through the legal way. "Earlier, only around 100 million minutes of calls used to be legally terminated by telecom operators," said Bhandari.
The CIB has urged telecom operators and internet service providers to help and coordinate with the police to find out the remaining places where the illegal practice of VOIP is still taking place. It said that based on the report of telecom operators, there are some three-five locations active in the Kathmandu Valley.
"The main reason is distribution of SIM cards without proper documents," said Bhandari.
He added that the practice of illegal call bypass can be eliminated totally by greater vigilance at the customs through which the equipment is imported, access to the multi router traffic grapher (MRTG) of internet service providers that clearly shows the rate of internet uses by customers, capacity building of the CIB and setting up trackers having the capacity to track the locations easily by telecom operators.
"We are planning to form a technical committee to conduct an investigation with the help of the MRTG graph," said Bhandari.
Published by HT Syndication with permission from EKantipur.com.
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