September 5, 2002	Thursday	Jamadi-us-Saani26,1423

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ISLAMABAD, Sept 4: The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has put major players in cellular telephone sector on a three month notice to rectify technical problems causing serious difficulties to the consumers.

The congestions of network by over subscription has been a major complaint against the two main cellular phone companies and the companies have been asked to expand their networks and improve their service within a period of three months, the PTA chairman, Shazada Alam, told Dawn on Wednesday.

The chairman said in case the companies failed to significantly improve their services, the authority would take stern action, which could be imposition of huge fines.

Mr Alam said he had also written letters to the heads of these companies asking them to improve their services. He said a company operating its system on AMPS technology had applied to switch over to EGSM, a variant of GSM technology.

The same company has also assured to make an investment of $150 million for expansion within the next two to three years, he added.

The chairman pointed out that the Pakistan Telecommunication Company and cellular phone companies have set up complaint cells at their respective organization to address to the complaints routed through the authority.

The authority has asked the Central Board of Revenue to reduce the activation charges for new mobile connections, he said.

The chairman said the reduction in the activation charges would give a boast to the industry and would also help the government to generate more revenue from the cellular phone sector.

Citing the example of introduction of Calling Party Pays (CPP) regime by the government, Mr Alam said: “It gave tremendous boast to the cellular phone sector.”

“Before the introduction of the CPP, the market was static at 250,000 connections but after the implementation of the CPP regime the market saw a phenomenal growth and the mobile phone users increased to over 1.2 million,” he added.