ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Telecommuni-cation Authority (PTA) has imposed a fine of Rs30 million on the Pakistan Mobile Communication Limited (PMCL) for its failure to comply with the Quality of Services Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in seven cities.
The Authority has further directed that as a result of re-verification survey to ascertain the compliance of KPIs for QoS as conducted in two cities, the licensee has also been found non-compliant with regard to observing parameters of QoS.
The licensee is further directed to improve the quality of licensed services so as to meet or exceed the target value of QoS parameters as per the license standards and QoS Regulations. In case of failure to comply with, legal proceeding will be initiated against the licensee as per applicable law.
The Authority panel headed by its chairman Maj Gen Amir Azeem Bajwa (retired) heard the issue “Failure to meet QoS standards as laid down in the license”.
The Authority as to ensure that users of telecommunication services get such QoS standards as laid down in the license and QoS Regulations, conducted a survey in 4th quarter of 2020 from 24th November, 2020 to 11th December 2020 at Kabir Wala, Hyderabad, Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, and Quetta using “Smart Benchmarker” QoS Tool. Thereafter, for removal of the shortfalls, the PTA on 28th December 2020 forwarded the results to the licensee with the direction to submit a detailed report containing analysis of each non-compliant parameter, reasons, and corrective measures taken to redress the degraded service quality issues within 30 days of the issuance of the said letter.
However, the licensee failed to comply with Authority’s directions concerning removing the shortfalls communicated. The licensee after the lapse of two months and 14 days submitted belated reply vide letter dated 11th March 2021 in response of the aforesaid directions of the Authority, and perusal of the reply revealed that the licensee did not take any corrective measures to remove the shortfalls.
Due to failure on the part of the licensee for maintaining the required standards of quality of service as per clause 1.3 of the Appendix-3 of the license, a Show Cause Notice (SCN) under section 23 of the Act was issued to the licensee, wherein, the licensee was required to remedy the aforementioned contravention by bringing and maintaining the required standards of quality of service within 15 days of the issuance of the SCN and also explain in writing, within 30 days of the issuance of the SCN.
The licensee replied to the Show Cause Notice and denied all allegations provided in the SCN. The relevant portion of the reply is below: The measurement issues, that arise solely due to moving the goalpost by an unannounced and secretive use of the new Benchmarker Tool instead of the agreed NEMO-DT Tool agreed between the Authority and the Licensee, which measurement issues do not exist when measured using NEMO-DT, and The network issues at the time of the survey, that existed for valid or customary operational reasons, but which now stand resolved, per the redrive test report attached herewith, and per the technical report/logs analysis report dated 11th March, 2021 filed with the Authority.
The Licensee invokes its right under regulation 8(7) of the Cellular Mobile Network Quality of Service (QoS) Regulations, 2011, for repeat testing using NEMO-DT, should the Authority not agree with this submission. The logs analysis report was submitted within 30 days after the logs became decipherable. Due to the abrupt and unilateral change of test tool, post processing incompatibility of the survey logs resulted when the logs were run on the NEMO-DT Tool in use of the Licensee by consensus with the Authority.
The reasons for the Authority sudden shift to a new tool are not transparently visible. The Authority ‘s power to choose a tool is conditioned by an equitable obligation of the Authority and legitimate expectations of the Licensee that the need to move to a new tool must be premised on objective and valid reasons and not be the result of an arbitrary and subjective choice that tends to favour a particular brand without compliance with public procurement legislation that the choice of a new tool must not take the Licensee by surprise by departing from a decade old settled choice of a QoS tool, and must also inspire confidence that the new tool and its measurement metrics are consistent with the Licensee ‘s system and network design that is within the knowledge of the Authority, it added.
The Authority observed; the Authority under the Act is mandated to regulate the establishment, maintenance and operation of telecommunication system and provision of telecommunication services in Pakistan. The Authority under section 5 read with section 21 of the Act, grants licenses for telecommunication system and services. In addition, the Authority under section 5(2) (b) of the Act is also empowered to enforce and monitor the licenses. Pursuant to the license granted by the Authority, the licensee is required to provide the licensed services in accordance with terms and conditions of cellular mobile license, the provision(s) of the Act, rules, regulations and directions of the Authority issued from time to time.
As per License condition, the licensee is required all the time to meet or exceed the Quality of Service standards described in Appendix-Ill of the license and QoS Regulations. However, as per the aforesaid QoS survey, the services of the licensee were found non-compliant to the QoS parameters laid down in the license and the QoS Regulations. It would be pertinent to mention here that as per clause 3.1.1 of the license, the license is subject to the terms and conditions contained in the license and to the provisions of Act, rules and regulations made thereunder by the Authority.
The contention of the licensee that QoS issues arose and are to be attributed due to a change in the QoS Monitoring and Benchmark Tool (i.e., “SMARTBENCHMARKER”) rather than NEMO tool on the premise that such QoS issues do not exist when measured through latter, is not based on facts. Pursuant to license terms and conditions, the licensee is under an obligation to meet and exceed the QoS Standards as set out in the license, at all times. More so, there is no bar on the Authority to use a specific QoS tool for measuring the benchmarks as claimed by the licensee. In this regard it is relevant to point out that the functions of the “SMARTBENCHMARKER” are in full compliance with relevant ITU and ETSI standards i.e. ITU-T P.863 (POLQA voice), ETSI TS 102 250 (i.e. speech and multimedia transmission quality QoS aspects for popular services in mobile networks) being followed globally. Furthermore, “SMARTBENCHMARKER” is capable to measure GSM, UMTS / HSPA+ and LTE technologies currently deployed in Pakistan and adhere to other variants such as VoLTE being deployed by the licensee. Thus, both “NEMO” and “SMARTBENCHMARKER’ are ITU and ETSI compliant tools which are used for the measurement of QoS parameters, it added.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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