ISLAMABAD: Amid deteriorating telecom services in the country, Cellular Mobile Operators (CMOs) partially met key performance indicators (KPIs), set in their licences and the applicable regulations with respect to voice services, webpage loading and latency, an independent survey about quality of service (QoS) carried out by the Pakistan Telecommunication Autho-rity (PTA) revealed.
Official sources revealed that since the start of these surveys, CMOs have yet to meet all KPIs. The PTA was earlier issuing showcase notices and later imposing penalties; however, since August 2023, the authority has neither issued showcase notice nor imposed penalties despite poor quality of services as evident from PTA’s own surveys.
Asking about the reason for not taking any action, top PTA official confirmed to Business Recorder that they do not want to frighten telecom operators any more.
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CMOs have paid around Rs7 million; i.e. only around 17 percent of the total penalty of over Rs40 million imposed by PTA for poor quality of services, besides 601 cases are pending in different courts, as and when PTA took action, CMOs went to courts, the top official added.
The PTA carried out independent Quality of Service (QoS) Survey in 23 cities of Pakistan during 2nd Quarter 2024. During the survey, performance of CMOs has been assessed in accordance with the Cellular Mobile Network Quality of Service (QoS) Regulations 2021.
The PTA carried out independent QoS survey in 16 cities of Pakistan during 1st Quarter 2024. The survey drive comprised of approximately 4000KMs travelling per CMO in 83 days to cover maximum areas of surveyed cities. During the survey 0.38 Million tests of Mobile Broadband and 57500 calls and SMS tests were conducted. During the survey, Quality of Services tests were conducted in the areas of Voice, Mobile Broadband (i.e. Data (Automode), Data (Ookla), Latency (Ookla) & Web Browsing) and Short Messaging Service (SMS).
During the survey, while conducting data test in technology auto detect mode, 4G/’LTE signal strength samples were recorded on survey routes. CMOs met partially met the KPI, but no operator was compliant in all the surveyed areas.
During the survey, 3G signal strength samples were also recorded on survey routes, wherever network switched to 3G while keeping the mobile handset in technology auto detect mode. CMOs met partially met the KPI, but no operator was compliant in all the surveyed areas.
Latency is a vital indicator of Mobile Broadband Performance as user experience is highly dependent of it. During the survey, Network Latency was measured by calculating the ping between different websites and Ookla Speed Test servers. However, all of the four operators missed the KPI were found non-compliant in most of the cases.
Web Page Loading Time of different national and international websites were tested, where not a single operator was found compliant in all of the surveyed areas. The operators met the KPI partially.
A total of 28,837 call attempts were made and out of which 537 were failed attempts. In 28,300 successful call attempts, 233 calls dropped prior to completion of two minutes duration, whereas 28,067 calls remained connected for the complete duration of two minutes. The 5 x QoS KPIs (i.e. Network Accessibility, Call Setup Success Rate, Call Setup Time, Call Completion Rate and Mean Opinion Score) have been measured while testing voice services in the surveyed cities. The operators met the KPI partially.
A total of 28,713 SMS sending attempts were conducted, out of which 28,626 SMS were successfully transmitted by A-Party while 28,310 SMS were successfully received at B-Party. The 2 x SMS QoS KPIs (i.e. Success Rate and Delivery Time) have been measured while testing SMS services in the surveyed cities. The operators met the KPI partially.
The categorisation of CMOs in Mobile Network Coverage i.e. Signal Strength of 4G/LTE and 3G Networks (in case of fallback) measured in Technology Auto Detect Mode, where Ufone was found to be at 1st position, Zong second, Jazz third and Telenor 4th.
Jazz stands first with respect to the Download Data Throughput, Zong second, Ufone third and Telenor 4th. Zong stands first at the Upload Data Throughput, Jazz second, Telenor third and Ufone 4th. Telenor stands first with respect to the categorisation of each CMOs, as per the maximum compliant of cities in terms of Latency, Zong second, Jazz third and Ufone 4th.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024