MTN SA closes illegal grey routing links

The most noticeable impact on customers is receiving international calls of very poor quality to the point that users cannot hear the other person. Additionally grey routed calls do not deliver CLI which mobile users value in managing contacts and answering calls. It also affects the people calling MTN users with the same poor quality and they find it very hard to get through to the South African user due to the low call completion rates.

Grey routing also undermines delivery of roaming services to inbound and outbound users. Inbound roamers cannot receive calls that have been grey routed and South African roamers overseas have difficulty accessing voicemail and other services due to the poor quality and lack of CLI to identify them on the network.

Speaking on the matter, Tim Lowry, managing director, MTN SA confirmed that: “Internationally, Grey Routing is illegal and MTN cannot compromise the network quality for its customers. We are in the service business and ensuring a top quality network service is a key priority for us. Grey Routing congests network cells and prevents legitimate users accessing the network.”

MTN will suspend services found to be used for bypassing the legal interconnect routes to MTN or other networks. MTN has also notified its interconnect partners to stop their networks being used to grey route traffic to MTN.

The proposed termination is in the best interest of MTN customers and the people who call them from around the world. MTN is also implementing an Interconnect Bypass Policy to specify the actions it will impose against service providers and customers using network services for interconnect bypass.