ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and Federal Investigation Agency have arrested 57 persons in 65 raids, conducted against grey trafficking and confiscated 250 gateway equipments during last one year.
According to the regulator’s annual report for 2015, PTA and Federal Investigation Agency jointly conducted a total of 65 raids in various cities including, Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Hyderabad, Multan, Gujrat, Jhang, Wah
Cantt, Kasur, Toba Tek Singh, Chaman, Lower Dir, Bhakkar, Fateh Jhang Larkana, “The successful raids resulted in arrest of 57 person besides, confiscation of 250 illegal Gateway equipments,” it added. In another mode of eradicating the menace of illegal call termination, PTA regularly identities the SIMs being used in termination of gray traffic in Pakistan and in this connection, over one million mobile numbers have been identified terminating grey traffic and subsequently blocked.
The authority received 24,510 complaints against Cellular Mobile Operators (CMOs) under its Comprehensive Complaints Management System and addressed 98.7 percent successfully, the reported added.
Most of the complaints pertained to misuse of service, 45.3 percent belonged to obnoxious, fraudulent and undesired communication in addition to blocking of SIMs involved in sending SPAM messages.
As per details, the authority had launched the system few years back, enabling telecom consumers to lodge their complaints regarding telecom services online and receive prompt response. PTA has also given limited access of SMS to the operators where they can view and update the complaint status using dedicated log-ins.
Online SMS is accessible to general public through “Online Complaint Form” at PTAs website which is a convenient efficient and user friendly interface for loading complaints as well as keeping track of its outcome. Complainants are kept informed through auto generated E-mail notification to their E-mail address.
As per procedure, first the complainant has to register the complaint to telecom operator. If the issue is not resolved by operator within a prescribed timeframe the complainant can lodge the complaint through PTA toll free number fax, E-mail post or online through PTA’s website.
During the financial 2015 a total 40,445 complaints were received against telecom service providers including CMOs, Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL), Long Distance International (LDIs), Wireless Local Loop (WLL) and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) as compared to 36,092 complaints during corresponding period last year.
The reason for this increase was the rise in complaints regarding CMO verification issues and PTCL faults in service.
