The telecom watchdog agency, PTA is likely to give final deliberation to penalise two mobile phone operators on 'Quality of Service' soon, it is reliably learnt. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority will take decision on a survey held to check the quality of service (QoS) of two mobile phone operators.
Sources told Business Recorder that the telecom regulator gave a grace period of one month, that is already over (August 31), to take a formal decision on the evidences of the vigilant surveys held on complaints by subscribers of poor service of two mobile companies.
The PTA had earlier issued show-cause notices to the respective operators for their poor cellular service. It had also warned one operator of a fine amounting to Rs 350 million.
Earlier, the authority had said in its show-cause notice to one cellular operator that the mobile phone company had over five million subscribers across the country but quality of service it was offering was 'below the minimum standards given in the licence'.
The authority has also assured the subscribers that it would observe the cellular service of two operators (Mobilink and Ufone) and if found below standard, the telecom regulator would take stringent action against them.
A source said, "We have already given sufficient time to the operators - specially Mobilink, which had requested for one-month's time to upgrade its network."
The operators would not be allowed to pass-on the amount of fine to its subscribers and the subscribers should not worry about this, the source said.
The source further said that the authority was still receiving complaints of the poor cellular service.
It may be recalled that a survey, initiated by the PTA few months back was conducted in line with the detailed 'Key Performance Indicators' (KPI), which were mutually agreed between the watchdog agency and all mobile phone operators.
These indicators include server congestion, call connecting error, false messaging, frequent call drops and excessive and unjustified billing as a result of false messaging.
In the past, the accumulated results have shown that the quality of service is far below the minimum standards given in the licence.
In order to ensure that the interests of the users are duly protected and that the licensee does not provide poor service to the users, show-cause notices were served to Mobilink and Ufone.
The first survey was carried out during May-June 2002 in Islamabad, Peshawar, Karachi, Lahore and Quetta. "The results of the surveys were published in the newspapers and the cellular mobile operators were directed to improve their Quality of Service (QoS) within a period of 90 days."
It is worth mentioning here that a special complaint cell was established at the PTA Headquarters in January 2002 where a large number of complaints regarding poor cellular service were received.
The second survey was conducted between January 6 and February 8, 2003. On the proposal of the licensee, the authority, that time, evolved a strategy to conduct the survey along with the detailed KPIs.
After scrutinising the complaints and results of second survey, the authority issued show-cause notices to the licensee on 20th February 2003, as results were found far below the standards given in the licence. Based on the hearing held on June 2, 2003, the authority passed its verdict on June 6, 2003 and the licensee was directed to compensate its customers up to the extent of Rs60 million within 30 days of the order.
The third survey of all GSM operators was conducted from July to August 2004. The authority decided to conduct a fourth comprehensive QoS survey of all GSM operators across the country from February 7 to 27, 2005 jointly with the representatives of the licensees.