International calls control measures under review

Telecommunication experts in Central Africa are currently devising ways through which they can curb financial losses and other damages incurred as a result of international calls not respecting their normal channels.

A three-day sub-regional workshop on the theme, “Economic stakes and prospects on the control of incoming calls,” began in Yaounde on Tuesday November 18 under the chairmanship of the Director General of the Telecommunications Regulatory Board, Jean Louis Beh Mengue.

Speaking during the opening ceremony, Mr Beh Mengue noted that evolutions in the telecommunications sector in Cameroon especially with the entry of new telephone operators and new subscribers has made control of incoming calls cumbersome.

The State and the regulator, he added, no longer control the volume of calls and so depend on operators on whatever they give through their annual activity reports. The boom in information and communication technology, he noted, would have fetched a lot for the State and operators in terms of fallouts but which varnishes in the cacophony of uncontrolled volume of calls.

This is exacerbated by fraud in international calls wherein people bypass the normal course for calls. International calls appearing as local calls, experts say, are examples of the fraud. Reason why, he said, there was an urgent need to seek ways of better controlling the traffic.

The Yaounde workshop therefore seeks to come up with efficient control measures for the growing socio-economic scourge.

Participants have since been looking at the recommendations of the International Telecommunications Union on the management of international calls, regulatory and administrative instruments in place, the need for a control agency as well as experiences from elsewhere that have worked. It ends this November 20.