Damaged Cable Cuts Voice, Data Service to India, Pakistan - CRM News

Damage to the undersea telecommunications cable SEA-ME-WE3 (SMW3) Monday initially disrupted most of Pakistan's international telephone and Internet connections, but the outage spread to India, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Djibouti as repairs were started yesterday.

Call centers in India using connections through the Reliance Group, India's largest corporate conglomerate, to SMW3 to reach customers in the U.S. were experiencing service outages for the past day, they reported to InternationalStaff.net, a company that specializes in offshore process migration, call center program management, turnkey software development and help desk management.

Indian call centre 'fraud' probe - BBC

Police are investigating reports that the bank account details of 1,000 UK customers, held by Indian call centres, were sold to an undercover reporter.

The Sun claims one of its journalists bought personal details including passwords, addresses and passport data from a Delhi IT worker for UK pounds 4.25 each.

But, in a BBC interview, the worker named by the paper denied the claims.

India's top software body said India was a 'trustworthy' location and would treat the claims 'extremely seriously'.

The National Association of Software and Service Companies said it would work with authorities in the UK and India to ensure criminals were 'promptly prosecuted and face the maximum penalty'.

'The problem is not unique to any single nation - it is one that affects us all - and each of us has a responsibility to take on the criminals,' its statement added.

Indian Outsourcing exposes firms to fraud - BBC

The arrest last week of a man in western India in an alleged call-centre fraud case went unreported. This was despite the high-profile reporting on the case in April when 16 others were arrested.

This suited India's business process outsourcing (BPO) companies, especially Mphasis, whose four employees have been implicated in the case. They are yet to recover from the shock of the alleged fraud of nearly $400,000.

Amid calls for tightening BPO regulations and more effective cyber laws the country's call centres are busy taking adequate security measures. Another one or two such cases and the industry is doomed, they admit.

Police, who are still investigating the case, believe it was well thought through and very organised.

Investigating officer Sanjay Yadav says the latest arrest just highlights how well-planned and widespread the fraud was.

Fighting Image Problem: An IT Industry Rises in Pakistan

When it comes to Pakistan, the image belies the reality, and seeing is believing. From the shadows of a misplaced image has emerged an innovative strategy that seems to do the trick. This might just be the right kind of break the country's software industry needs from its rather lackluster past. Pakistan is fast becoming a happening place for IT.

Pakistan: Better Late Than Never In Outsourcing

Think software and services outsourcing, and places like Bangalore, Manila, and perhaps Budapest spring to mind. But Lahore or Karachi? The Pakistani cities might not be on the outsourcing map yet, but the country's software shops are out to change that. 'As a natural course, American companies would not look at Pakistan,' acknowledges Jehan Ara, president of the 250-member Pakistan Software Houses Assn. 'So we have to get them to look at us, and once they do business with us and credibility is established, they come back for more.'