PTA committed to protect consumer interests

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has taken measures to protect consumer interests and promote high quality ICT services to the consumers.

All the licenses issued to Cellular Mobile Operators (CMOs) have discrete Quality of Service (QoS) parameter and PTA keeps conducting audits/surveys to check QoS and accuracy of billing round-the-year. All QoS surveys are conducted with state-of-the-art drive test tool, a press release Monday said.

As 3G/4G networks are expanding, PTA is conducting QoS surveys in small cities to ensure availability of high quality mobile services in small cities as well.

This year, PTA has conducted QoS survey in 24 cities so far and their results would be published for general public after processing of the gathered data through state-of-the-art post processing tools.

Independent sources like Open signal (https://opensignal.com/reports/2016/11/state-of-lte) has confirmed that average 4G speeds in Pakistan is 11.71 Mbps download which is significantly better than many countries.

Furthermore the same source confirms that 4G services are now available to more than 50% of Pakistan's population.

In addition to the continuous audits, PTA has setup a dedicated Consumer Protection Directorate (CPD), which process each and every consumer complaint meticulously for their resolution.

Consumer Protection Department can be contacted by any telecom subscriber through telephone 0800-55055, email complaint@pta.gov.pk or through PTA website www.pta.gov.pk.

Nevertheless, there is room for improvement of services especially 3G/4G data services in remote areas and suburbs, and mobile operators are plugging these grey areas in addition to expanding coverage of their networks swiftly in far-flung areas.

In three years time, 3G & 4G services are now available in more than 250 cities of Pakistan. PTA would continue providing latest technologies for public of Pakistan.