OTT Bypass

In telecommunications, OTT Bypass is a fraud variant where international voice calls are converted by a service provider into Over-The-Top traffic (such as messaging-app calls) and delivered to the destination without crossing the legitimate PSTN, bypassing termination fees.

Categories: FraudOperations and BusinessInternet and Routing

OTT Bypass in context

Telecom fraud costs operators an estimated $40+ billion per year. Common vectors include International Revenue Share Fraud (IRSF), Wangiri callback scams, SIM box bypass, PBX hacking, subscription fraud and A2P grey routing. Effective defense combines real-time signaling analytics with CDR-side machine learning.

OSS/BSS platforms (provisioning, charging, mediation, order management) hold the highest-value subscriber and revenue data on the operator side. They are heavily targeted for fraud and insider abuse and are increasingly in scope for regulatory obligations like NIS2 and the UK Telecoms Security Act.

To place OTT Bypass in the wider telecom-security picture, review AIT, SIM Box, Revenue Share Fraud, Traffic Pumping, Flash Call Fraud and PBX Dial-Through Fraud.

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