Zong: King in the North

Findings from a latest Quality of Service (QoS) survey confirmed what many in the twin cities have come to experience: Zong is providing far better mobile broadband speeds than other operators. This is according to brief findings released by the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority in its recent QoS survey done in Islamabad, Peshawar, and Rawalpindi. The survey is reportedly in progress in other cities.
With a user data throughput of 7.71 Mega bits per second (Mbps), China Mobile Pakistan, Zong’s sponsor, is the indisputable king in the north. At 5.04Mbps, Mobilink is in the second place, but it’s not a close second. Telenor came in third with a distant 1.94Mbps, and Ufone occupied the last rung at 1.17Mbps. All operators comfortably met the minimum requirements for data throughput rate. These findings, however, don’t tell the whole picture. First, they don’t classify network speeds in appropriate categories. It is instructive to have data rates broken down in terms of 3G and 4G network speeds. It is probable that Zong may be leading in the smaller 4G segment but not in forefront in the bigger 3G segment. Second, one also needs to look at the broadband speed’s classification in terms of average download and upload speeds in different cities. For that can give a better idea of operators’ focus in different areas. Hopefully those missing values will be released with the full survey.
And third, later on as more cities will be covered in the survey, operators may shift places. In the previous survey – which the PTA had conducted last year in the four cities of Islamabad, Lahore, Peshawar, and Rawalpindi – it was Mobilink that led the 3G field with an average download speed of 4Mbps and an upload rate of 3.1Mbps. Zong followed closely with 3.6Mbps and 2.9Mbps for average download and upload speeds, respectively. Telenor came in third and Ufone fourth. Zong was ahead of Warid in 4G.
However, one theme remains consistent. Operators which had acquired a bigger slice of the available spectrum back in the 2014 auction are offering much better speeds than their smaller rivals. To recall, Zong had purchased two 10MHz blocks, one each for 3G and 4G networks. Mobilink acquired a 10MHz block for 3G services. Telenor and Ufone deemed the smaller, 5MHz block preferable at that stage. Of course, network speeds can markedly fluctuate for an operator within a region and across depending on supply and demand of data services. But a bigger spectrum holding makes it easier to offer and sustain higher network speeds to subscribers in the initial phase when subscriptions are rapidly growing. By that measure, Zong would continue to have the technological advantage over its rivals.