Illegal call termination costing telecoms companies $150m a year
Mobile networks are losing revenues worth at least US$150 million annually from the illegal termination of calls, also known as ‘GSM Gateway’ or ‘SIM box’ fraud, according to the UK based anti-fraud company, Revector.
In Ghana, Minister of Communication Haruna Iddrisu announced last year that Ghana was losing $5.8 million in taxes alone to fraudulent international call termination.
But on paper, the operators are losing more money than the state loses in taxes.
Between January and June this year, government raked in over $14 million in taxes from international call termination after installing and implementing call monitoring and management system.
SIM box fraud takes place when individuals or organizations purchase hundreds of SIM cards offering free or low cost calls to mobile numbers.
These are then used to channel calls away from mobile network operators and present them as local calls on their networks losing mobile operators significant call revenues.
A statement quoted Revector CEO Andy Gent as saying operators that don’t take measures to remove SIM box fraud are letting significant revenues slip through their shareholders’ fingers.
He said they are also risking lower customer satisfaction as call quality can be severely reduced and features such as caller line identity are also removed.
Revector identified illegal SIM box termination in more than 50 countries over the last two years.
In some cases SIM cards were generating 10 cents per minute for more than 20 days per month, costing an operator up to $3,000 per SIM, per month in lost revenue.
One European operator estimated losses in excess of $15 million through SIM box fraud per year.
The Revector boss said “the scale of SIM box fraud is driven by the easy availability of GSM gateway hardware and the wide range of different offers available from mobile network operators.
He said Organizations can effectively go into business terminating GSM calls and generate thousands in revenues, which should rightly be collected by network operators.
“We have seen countries where tens of thousands of SIM cards are being used for illegal termination at any one moment in time,” Gent said.
Gent concluded that SIM box fraud is only one of the ways in which mobile networks are being used to generate fraudulent or illegal revenues, adding “we are seeing a number of new ways in which the mobile networks are being manipulated for illicit gains.”
Meanwhile in Ghana, mobile network operators are on the war path with government, resisting the implementation of gateway management system to check the SIM box fraud, even though on paper both the operators and government are losing money.
Suspicions that some of the operators connive with fraudsters to rip-off the state in taxes have not been out-ruled.
By Samuel Dowuona
Mobile networks are losing revenues worth at least US$150 million annually from the illegal termination of calls, also known as ‘GSM Gateway’ or ‘SIM box’ fraud, according to the UK based anti-fraud company, Revector.
In Ghana, Minister of Communication Haruna Iddrisu announced last year that Ghana was losing $5.8 million in taxes alone to fraudulent international call termination.
But on paper, the operators are losing more money than the state loses in taxes.
Between January and June this year, government raked in over $14 million in taxes from international call termination after installing and implementing call monitoring and management system.
SIM box fraud takes place when individuals or organizations purchase hundreds of SIM cards offering free or low cost calls to mobile numbers.
These are then used to channel calls away from mobile network operators and present them as local calls on their networks losing mobile operators significant call revenues.
A statement quoted Revector CEO Andy Gent as saying operators that don’t take measures to remove SIM box fraud are letting significant revenues slip through their shareholders’ fingers.
He said they are also risking lower customer satisfaction as call quality can be severely reduced and features such as caller line identity are also removed.
Revector identified illegal SIM box termination in more than 50 countries over the last two years.
In some cases SIM cards were generating 10 cents per minute for more than 20 days per month, costing an operator up to $3,000 per SIM, per month in lost revenue.
One European operator estimated losses in excess of $15 million through SIM box fraud per year.
The Revector boss said “the scale of SIM box fraud is driven by the easy availability of GSM gateway hardware and the wide range of different offers available from mobile network operators.
He said Organizations can effectively go into business terminating GSM calls and generate thousands in revenues, which should rightly be collected by network operators.
“We have seen countries where tens of thousands of SIM cards are being used for illegal termination at any one moment in time,” Gent said.
Gent concluded that SIM box fraud is only one of the ways in which mobile networks are being used to generate fraudulent or illegal revenues, adding “we are seeing a number of new ways in which the mobile networks are being manipulated for illicit gains.”
Meanwhile in Ghana, mobile network operators are on the war path with government, resisting the implementation of gateway management system to check the SIM box fraud, even though on paper both the operators and government are losing money.
Suspicions that some of the operators connive with fraudsters to rip-off the state in taxes have not been out-ruled.
By Samuel Dowuona