ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has issued revised ‘Fixed Broadband Quality of Service (QoS) Regulations, 2022’ to address the growing concern of quality of broadband services due to the increasing number of subscribers.
The PTA has reviewed the existing ‘Broadband Quality of Service Regulations, 2014’ and issued revised fixed broadband regulations after due consultation with all the stakeholders.
These regulations have been updated keeping in view existing and emerging fixed broadband technologies including xDSL (Digital Subscriber Line), cable broadband (DOCSIS 3.x), fixed wireless, fibre to the home (FTTH)/GPON, and satellite broadband, etc. The aim is to better gauge the services agreed upon by the service providers with the end users.
The regulations include aspects such as: fixed broadband internet speeds for download data throughput should be at least 4Mbps (up from 256 kbps) and 2Mbps upload. 80 percent of the advertised download speeds should be available at all times to the end users.
Moreover, the PTA will not only conduct QoS Surveys and test the quality of services being provided to consumers, but it shall also implement and execute the recurring National Broadband Measurement Program (NBM). For this purpose, pre-configured devices shall be placed with group of volunteers and line performance shall be measured all the time. The results shall be available on dedicated servers placed on designated places as decided by the Authority. Such testing can either be undertaken by authorized PTA officers or through designated agency hired for the purpose.
Based on technological advancements in fixed broadband networks, more stringent thresholds have been set for existing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) (e.g. Latency, Packet Loss, Jitter, etc.). Furthermore, new set of KPIs have been introduced, including Voice over IP (VoIP) services, Web Page Loading Time, and Bandwidth Utilization.
A special emphasis has been placed on the implementation of the concept of “Net Neutrality”. Broadband Service Providers (BSPs) are to treat all internet communications equally and are forbidden from slowing or throttling Internet speeds in order to delay/block applications, websites, or any other content on the Internet. Network providers shall transport all services on an equal basis regardless of their types.
The PTA is committed to provide consumers with high-quality services as well as promote rapid technological advancements in the country.
Service up time success rate is the measure to ascertain the broadband service up time to the end users in case of planned or unplanned start of customer’s end device/equipment. The Benchmark for Service up Time Success Rate should be ? 98 percent.
Network availability is the measure of the degree to which the network (Access and Core) is operable and not in a state of failure or outage at any point of time. It measures the total downtime of the network, including the ATM/IP switches, multiplexers, routers, e-mail facilities (if provided) and connection to Internet backbone over a month. All scheduled downtime for the purposes of maintenance and upgrading of the network system will be excluded from the calculation. However, all access network operators must keep their users informed of such maintenance times. The benchmark for Network Availability; Access Nodes should be 99 percent and for Core Nodes should be 99.9 percent.
The download data throughput is the data transmission rate that is achieved for downloading specified test files between a remote web site and a user’s computer in order to check the actual download speed available to the subscriber.
The Benchmark for the download data throughput should be ?80 percent of the advertised speed of the broadband service plan/package to the consumers and this must be experienced at all the times.
Size of test file should be at least 10 GB in size or as determined by the Authority. It should be downloaded from website decided by the Authority, as long as the choice is consistent for all.
The upload data throughput is defined as the data transmission rate that is achieved for uploading the specified files between a user’s computers to remote website in order to check the actual upload speed available to the subscriber.
A test file should be at least 500MB in size or as determined by the Authority. The file should be uploaded to an upload server/website decided by the Authority, as long as the choice is consistent for all.
Network Latency/Round Trip Time (RTT): Latency or Round Trip Time (RTT) is the measure of the duration of a roundtrip for a data packet between a specific source and destination. It is used to measure the delay on a network at a given time. The greater the latency within a network, the longer it takes packets to reach their destination.
The RTT test shall be conducted using “ping” based on a minimum standard packet size of 32 bytes, and should be measured up to the edge node of the network, connected to the Internet cloud or any other server decided by the authority.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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