February 25, 2003	Tuesday	Zul Hijjah 23, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, Feb 24: Federal Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunications Awais Ahmed Khan Leghari has called for vigilant monitoring of cellular companies to ensure quality mobile phone service to the subscribers.

In a statement issued here on Monday, the minister welcomed the issuance of a notice by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to a private mobile phone company.

He said the telecom ministry had been urging the PTA to effectively play its role in ensuring quick and result-oriented service to the mobile phone users.

The cellular mobile industry showed a phenomenal growth since the Calling Party Pays (CPP) regime was introduced about three years ago, he added.

“The number of cellular subscribers quadrupled since December, 2000 and is likely to exceed the two million mark in the near future.”

It is expected that once this landmark is achieved, the cellular subscriber base will multiply at an even faster rate, he added.

The minister regretted that despite extremely encouraging response by the public towards acceptance and take-up of cellular telephony services, the mobile phone companies had failed to rise to the challenge of providing adequate and high-quality services to a growing market desirous of joining the community of cellular phone users.

The mobile companies have failed to make adequate investments in subscriber capacity as well as radio and interconnection infrastructure to support their customers, he added.

The inadequacy of infrastructure and lack of enforcement of quality standards by the regulator has resulted in increasing the number of unsatisfied consumers constantly complaining about choked networks, cross talks, frequent dropped calls and degraded quality of voice communication, he said.

APP ADDS: Owing to the incompetence of existing GSM cellular networks, the government will issue licenses to new firms to introduce GSM services in the country, the IT and telecom minister said.