The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), in a move to evaluate the service standards provided by wireless local loop (WLL) operators, will conduct a survey in the first quarter of 2008.
The PTA sources told Business Recorder on Thursday that the proposed survey of call centres would be important under the PTA's newly-devised strategy, which suggested the assessment of companies' service via high-tech equipment imported by the authority.
"The exact date of the survey has not been announced, but it is expected during the first quarter of next year," said sources working on the survey. It may be mentioned that the quality of service survey of cellular companies is under process, which will be completed in last week of November and its report will be compiled by mid-December.
"The PTA has acquired a high-tech equipment with software for the purpose of the proposed survey," the sources said and added the PTA had already acquired equipment and services of recognised firms what it called "QoS monitoring tool for GSM, WLL limited mobility (CDMA) and post-processing software. "The latest technology would also allow the PTA to put a permanent check on the services," said the sources citing the PTA plan.
The services include system installation, testing, commissioning and training. Post-processing software is required for already acquired PTA GSM tool without speech measurement. The sources said the proposed system would monitor quality of service of all the 17 companies, which acquired licences in 14 telecom regions for the WLL operations.
"Uptill now, the PTA conducts quality of service at least once in a year," the sources said, adding: "Since May 2002, the PTA has conducted four quality of service surveys. The last survey was conducted in July-August, 2004."
However, the sources said the installation of high-tech monitoring system would be the first of its kind to check the performance of the cellular as well as WLL companies, which had increased their share in the total subscribers base of telecom users during the last couple of years.
"So there is a great demand from the subscribers to make these companies (WLL) along with cellular operators accountable to the authority," said the sources."With the increase in the subscriber base of WLL companies, there are also growing complaints against some operators," they said.
The WLL customer number touched 1.75 million mark by the end of March 2007, increasing from 1.02 million registered by the end of June 2006. The service, started in 2004, had just 2,364 customers across the country by December 2004.
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