By Emma Njoku
There are fresh concerns over security issues around call masking and Subscriber Identity Module (SIM)-boxing related fraud in Nigeria.
Call masking or refilling is a practice in which international calls are terminated in Nigeria as local numbers, using illegal SIM boxes loaded with several numbers. It is a deliberate attempt by fraudsters to avoid paying the correct International Termination Rate (ITR) for international calls, paying instead the Local Termination Rate (LTR).
For example, when the number is masked as a local call, an operator pays N3.90 LTR and not N24.40 ITR. The process allows operators to terminate inbound international telecoms traffic as local calls, so they don’t have to pay ITR, which is the interconnection charge set by telecoms traffic carriers as carrier-to-carrier charges.
A SIM Box fraud is a setup where fraudsters install SIM boxes with multiple prepaid SIM cards. A fraudster can bring calls through VOIP (through internet) and terminate international calls through local phone numbers from a country, to make it appear as a local call, by initiating the call through local SIM installed in the SIM box.
About three years ago, when the issue came to the limelight, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) carried out some investigations, leading to the sanctioning and suspension of some operators earlier this year. Some of these suspensions were later lifted.
The Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), the Department of State Services (DSS), and Committees of the House of Representatives and Senate have, on several occasions, expressed concern on the menace. While many stakeholders believe that the menace has been nipped in the bud, it has continued to rear its ugly head to the bewilderment of experts and stakeholders.
President/Chief Executive Officer of Medallion Communications Limited, Ikechukwu Nnamani, an engineer, lamented that it is a subject matter, which NCC should address completely. Nnamani, who is an executive member of the premier telecom body in Nigeria – the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), said almost all calls he received recently are masked.
“Sometimes, I don’t pick calls because I do not know the number only to find out later it was an international call. The truth is that I don’t know why this has not been resolved; I expected it to have been solved. Honestly, I would not know why. One would have expected them to have sorted all these out by now,” he said.
Commenting on the issue, the President, National Association of Telecommunications Subscribers of Nigeria (NATCOMS), Chief Deolu Ogunbanjo, said there was no need to relent in reporting the menace to the right authority. He said it could be a plan to ensure that gain accrued to some people.
“I don’t know whether call masking favours the operator or it is being done deliberately. It is a situation that the telecoms should deal with because it is a technical problem. I think it is some of those unlicensed operators doing all these.
“Some of these operators’ facilities are being tapped into, they need to look into their operations, so they can be taken care of. If they are still in the habit of doing it, proper sanctions should be meted out to any erring service provider. There should be heavier sanctions. They can’t be short-changing subscribers and at the same time, the government,”
he said.
Executive Secretary, Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Mr. Ajibola Olude, said the issue was addressed before, but was not aware that it is resurfacing. He said it is a thing that you cannot eradicate, but can only be reduced.
“When it comes to technology, you can only address it maximally, it is not as rampant as before, and it is an international issue. We have addressed it before and we will look at it again. About four years ago, when it happened, we deployed all the resources within our capacity to address it and I think it was addressed maximally.
“I have not seen any operator complaining, except now that you are raising the issue, but as far as we know, call-masking is no longer a problem. I am going to contact our compliance monitoring to enlighten me about what is going on, but it is no longer an issue,” he said.
Also, Head, Communication, NCC, Mouka Reuben, said the situation has been tackled before and he did not think it was a major issue again. He, however, promised to look into it again with a view to finding a way out of it. NCC recently put the revenue lost to call-masking and SIM-boxing activities in the country at $3 billion.
This is as telecoms operators lamented during the 85th edition of the Telecom Consumer Parliament in Lagos that they were losing about N2.5 million minutes per day to these fraudulent activities. On actions that had been taken by the commission to combat the menace, former Executive Vice-Chairman, NCC, Prof Umar Danbatta, said the NCC had tightened the SIM registration process across all networks to reduce the availability of SIM cards for SIM-boxing as well as address the security issues around the availability of pre-registered SIMs.
He said the action was necessary as some arrests made in Lagos two weeks ago showed that the perpetrators of SIM-boxing had over 100 SIM cards registered with fictitious names and used them to divert international calls.