ISLAMABAD, April 15: Minister for Information Technology Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari on Tuesday directed the Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL) to draw up a comprehensive plan to address public complaints regarding the company’s internet connectivity.

“I am deeply concerned at the level to which the internet backbone performance problem has escalated,” he said while attending a high-level presentation given to him by the PTCL.

He directed the company to present a comprehensive plan addressing concerns of its users to the PTCL board of directors and take prudent decisions to check repeat such incidents in future.

The minister asked the company to ensure a high quality of service by assigning the task to a senior member of the PTCL management.

“The customers are suffering from the problems of connectivity and addressing these problems should be the responsibility of the company’s management and its board of directors,” he said.

The minister asked the PTCL staff to “work diligently to improve its service and win back customers’ confidence”.

He admitted that while the implementation of long-term strategies would require some time, corrective measures were required immediately by the PTCL “to provide acceptable quality of service and address customers’ grievances”.

Earlier, the company officials briefed the minister on the problems they had faced in the recent past on account of damage to their fiber optic cable as well as the incidents of denial of service attacks which slowed down the performance of all users.