While Vonage is settling in the US with Sprint for patent infringement, a Bangladeshi cell operator GrameenPhone struggles to raise funds to pay a jaw dropping fine of US$25 million for illegal termination of international calls into Bangladesh. That must be the biggest ever fine for the leaky PBX/switch thing.
What I do not get is why the overseas corresponding operators that sent GrameenPhone the traffic would not be liable to pay part of that fine. They are a partner in ‘crime’ too. If organizations like the ITU are too weak to settle such cross border cases, and if there cannot be a court for international telecom trade, perhaps the overseas carriers that interconnect with your provider should be required to sign transparent interconnect contracts that have local jurisdiction.
Regulators in developing countries continue to be sensitive about leaks because the high termination rates for international calls (previously known as international settlement rates) still constitute up to 20% of telecom revenues in some of these countries. And that revenue/margin subsidizes domestic telephone services and investment in domestic telephony infrastructure.
VoIP can potentially help in the long run. But market priorities, demand, and dynamics are not the same everywhere. Bangladesh would still require a couple of hundred dollars per annum per phone line to get a decent ROI on its PSTN infrastructure. And if the government uses some of the international calls termination revenue to subsidize it, you should let them do that, rather than tell them how to structure their telecom market.
Let the markets open at their own pace. Your leaky PBX is not as cool as you think. In fact it has never been a cool thing.