The number of 3G and 4G users in Pakistan reached 67.48 million by end-April 2019, said Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA). Number of mobile phone users in Pakistan reached 161.01 million by end-April compared to 159.024 million by end-March, which registered an increase of 1.986 million during the period under review.
Jazz's total count for 3G users stood at 13.393 million by end-April compared to 13.622 million by end-March, registering a decrease of 0.229 million. Jazz 4G user numbers jumped from 8.774 million by end-March to 9.618 million by end-April.
Zong 3G subscribers increased from 8.764 million by end-March to 8.779 million by end-April while the number of 4G users jumped from 11.600 million by end-March 2019 to 12.056 million by end-April. The number of 3G users of Telenor network decreased from 8.764 million by end-March 2019 to 8.640 million by end-April i.e. registering a decline of 0.124 million. The number of 4G users jumped from 5.905 million by end-March to 6.186 million by end-April.
Ufone 3G users decreased from 7.846 million by end-March to 7.646 million by end-April registering a decline of 0.2 million. Teledensity for cellular mobile increased from 75.86 percent by end-March to 76.69 by end-April and broadband subscribers reached 69.577 million by end-April compared to 68.244 million by end-March.
The PTA received 5,447 complaints from telecom consumers against different telecom operators including (cellular operators, PTCL, LDIs, WLL operators and ISPs) as of April 2019. According to the PTA data, Jazz (Mobilink + Warid) leads the chart with 1,408 complaints and Telenor stands at second position as the most complained telecom operator with 1,225 complaints.
The PTA said that it was able to get 5,429 complaints resolved i.e. 99.67 percent. Cellular mobile subscribers constitute major part of overall telecom subscriber base; therefore, maximum number of complaints belongs to this segment. Total number of complaints against CMOs by April stood at 4314. In terms of the segregation of complaints on operator basis, a total of 1,408 complaints were received against Jazz which is 32.63% of the total CMO-related complaints.
Telenor, which has the second largest number of consumers, was also second with 1,225 i.e. 28.39 percent complaints were received against it. Zong stood third with 915 complaints i.e. 21.21 percent of total complaints. Ufone had 766 complaints against its various services which make up 17.75 percent of the total CMO-related complaints.
The PTA also received 516 complaints against basic telephony where 506 were addressed during April 2019. Further 609 complaints were received against ISPs where 601 were addressed.