The recent survey by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) revealed that during the deteriorating telecom service in the country, Cellular Mobile Operators (CMOs) largely failed to meet the standards for voice service, webpage loading, and latency.
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According to TaazaTaren, sources disclosed that since the survey began, none of the CMOs have met the established standards. Previously, PTA had been issuing show-cause notices and imposing fines on them, but since August 2023, no fines or show-cause notices have been issued to CMOs for poor performance, despite this being highlighted in the PTA survey.
In response to a question about the lack of action against CMOs, a senior PTA official confirmed that they do not wish to further intimidate telecom operators.
CMOs have paid nearly 7 million rupees in penalties. The senior official further stated that this only accounts for 17% of the total fines of over 40 million rupees imposed by PTA for poor service quality. Additionally, 601 cases are pending in various courts.
During the second quarter of 2024, PTA conducted a Quality of Service (QoS) survey across 23 cities in Pakistan. The performance of CMOs was assessed based on the Cellular Mobile Network Quality of Service (QoS) Regulations 2021.
The survey covered approximately 4,000 kilometers. During the survey, 38,000 mobile broadband tests and 57,500 call and SMS tests were conducted.
A total of 28,837 call attempts were made, of which 537 failed. Out of the 28,300 successful call attempts, 233 calls were dropped before completing the two-minute duration, while 28,067 calls remained connected for the full two minutes.
During the survey, 3G signals were also recorded along the survey routes. A total of 28,713 SMS sending attempts were made, out of which 28,626 SMS were successfully delivered.
