ISLAMABAD, Nov 28: Mobile phone subscribers base has scaled up to 207,425 in just one month with the total number of end users increasing from 6.8 million in October to seven million in November, an official source told Dawn.
Official figures of October suggest that out of the four companies operating in the country, one enjoys the maximum share of 4.3 million subscribers out of the total of 6.8 million.
The second mobile phone company has 1.6 million subscribers, followed by the third with 562,843. The fourth company, which recently converted to GSM (Global System of Mobile Phones), has a customer base of 351,170. However, service quality of the top three companies is still below the license standards, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority's (PTA) Annual Report for 2003-04 claimed.
The cellular mobile sector showed significant growth last year as the number of subscribers, which was 2.4 million at the end of 2003, rose to seven million by November 2004. During 2003-04, the PTA conducted surveys in different cities to check quality of service of mobile phone companies but found their performance below standard.
Inspection of various facilities of the Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL) also showed that these were not fulfilling technical standards. Subsequently, the PTCL management was informed by the authority about the deficiencies in its service.
A special survey was also conducted in Lahore, Karachi, Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Bahawalpur, the annual report said, adding that the overall performance of the company, having the largest market share, was found to be below the license standards.
Likewise, it was found that sale of new connections by the second largest firm had badly affected the quality of service as complaints regarding congestion, echo and noise in the service poured in. Besides, there were also complaints about congestion in GPRS (general packet radio service), charging for unsuccessful calls and for balance enquiry from prepaid subscribers. None of the other operators charged on this account.
The services of the third largest firm deteriorated during the year. Another special survey was conducted in Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad and Burewala to assess the quality of service of the mobile companies.
Calls were made during peak hours for realistic analysis, the results of which showed that performance dropped to a level far below the license standards. However, the report said due to these surveys, the quality of service of all mobile companies showed considerable improvement, but a lot still needed to be done.
This exercise will continue till the performance and the quality of service is improved up to the satisfactory level of end users and international benchmarks, the report said.
During the year, the PTA issued 91 licenses of Fixed Local Loop (FLL), 70 Wireless Local Loop and 12 Long Distance International (LDI) after deregulation of the telecommunication sector.
The report said the mobile sector exhibited a growth of 173 per cent in 2003-04 while the PTA earned Rs1.7 billion as an initial license fee from FLL and LDI licenses.
