STAFF REPORT IBD: As part of its crackdown on grey traffic, the Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA) has blocked more than 200,000 internet protocol (IP) addresses, 1,382 mobile SIMs, and 3,160 phones/devices through their IMEI numbers during the past month.
According to details, the authority has begun monitoring grey traffic since early October and is blocking IP addresses automatically when they are not in the PTA whitelist.
As part of the effort, the existing whitelist has been audited as well and reduced to around 10,000 IP addresses. The regulator has also launched a complaints hotline, SMS, and e-mail facility which received 1,944 complaints to date.
The campaign against this grey telephony has been launched across the country as this illegal activity is incurring billions of rupees losses to the national exchequer annually.