ISLAMABAD: None of the Cellular Mobile Operators (CMOs) have achieved the 90 percent confidence level in Lahore with respect to 4G signal strength as per the license conditions, says the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).

In order to measure the performance and service quality of 2G (GSM), 3G (UMTS/HSPA+ etc) and 4G (LTE), of CMOs, the PTA carried out an independent Quality of Service (QoS) survey of Lahore through a third party service provider from 15th-28th February 2021 and 3rd-8th March 2021.

In the QoS survey at Lahore, various markets and hotspots during the 20 days of tests from 0800 to 2100 hours on a daily basis by deploying urban mobility riders.

The markets covered included Azam Cloth Market, Chuna Mandi, Mochi Gate, Landa Bazaar, Badami Bagh, Rang Mahal, Shah Alam Market, Electronics Market, Shah Alam, Bilal Ganj Baghban Pura, Sarafa Bazaar, Abid Market, Akbari Mandi, Brandreth Road, Hall Road and Kashmiri Road, and hotspots areas included Brandreth Road, high court and surroundings, Johar Town, Shah Alam Market, Bahria Town, Bedian Road, Paragon City, and DHA.

During the survey period, the mobile handsets were kept in auto detect mode i.e. preferably on 4G and fallback to 3G or 2G depending upon the availability of the network in particular area, therefore, majority of the time, the handsets remained on 4G network.

While traversing the routes, the level of signal strength received on mobile handsets have been recorded.

The 4G Reference Signal Receive Power (RSRP) and 3G Received Signal Code Power (RSCP) i.e. recorded samples of signal strength of all CMOs. 4G Signal Strength -- RSRP is the average power of Resource Elements (RE) that carry cell-specific Reference Signals (RS) over the entire bandwidth, so RSRP is only measured in the symbols carrying RS. As per license, the signal strength should be greater than -100dBm with 90 percent confidence level.

None of the CMOs have achieved the 90 percent confidence level in Lahore and remained as Jazz 82.5 percent, Telenor 67.52 percent, Ufone 72.86, and Zong 73.69 percent.

3G Signal Strength -- RSCP is the power measured by a mobile handset on a particular 3G physical communication channel.

As per license, the signal strength should be greater than 100dBm with 90 percent confidence level.

Except Ufone, other CMOs have achieved the 90 percent confidence level in Lahore given as Jazz 93.84 percent, Telenor 91.59 percent, Ufone 87.48 percent, and Zong 96.64 percent.

A total of 7,781 calls of two minutes duration have been made.

Except Mean Opinion Score (MOS) and call connection time by Telenor, CMOs have met the license threshold values of Voice QoS KPIs. A total of 36,367 data tests have been performed during this survey.

The QoS KPIs of User Data Throughput in Uplink and Downlink along with its percentage distribution have been measured.

The CMOs have met the licensed threshold values of the QoS KPIs.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021