Article: 17th December 2006

Islamabad call centre raided

The Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) has registered a protest with the federal IT ministry on Pakistan Telecommunication Authority’s (PTA) raid against a call centre running job portal on suspicious illegal operations. Sources in the industry said the PSEB appeared annoyed after last week’s incident when plain-clothed officials of the FIA (Federal Investigation Agency) and PTA raided a call centre office in Islamabad and arrested the professional there seizing telecom equipment on doubts that the set-up was being used for illegal voice termination.

“In fact, the company is one of the first companies in the world to launch an integrated voice resume system based on VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) technologies,” said a senior official who asked not to be named. “And their solution is being used by companies like TRG and others to hire quality talent for their call centres in Pakistan.” He said the joint FIA-PTA team seized the servers, mobiles and other equipments on the pretext that the company was using it for illegal VoIP termination. The authorities also locked up the company’s CEO.

The call centre operators claim that offices of the raided Cogilent Solutions runs a very successful job portal in the country called BrightSpyre. Among their innovations, the call centre is one of the first companies in the world to launch an integrated Voice Resume system based on VoIP technologies. The situation also rings alarm in industry quarters.

“This step has damaged all efforts we as call centre operators have been doing to promote the Pakistan call centre industry, also all our efforts to attract non-resident Pakistanis to come and work for Pakistani call centre industry,” said a letter to the federal minister from Call Centres Operators Association of Pakistan.