KARACHI: PTA warns cellphone company of Rs350m fine
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, April 5: The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has warned Mobilink that it will slap a Rs350 million fine on it and terminate its licence if the mobile phone company does not respond to a show-cause notice issued on Tuesday within 30 days. A press release issued by the PTA says that the show-cause notice was issued against Mobilink, which has over five million subscribers across the country, when a recent PTA survey found that the quality of service offered by the mobile phone company was “below the minimum standards given in the licence.”
“In pursuance of the persistent complaints by the users of cellular mobile services in Pakistan, the PTA conducted a survey, fourth in series, from Feb 7, 2005 to Feb 27, 2005 jointly with the representatives of GSM mobile phone operators including Mobilink, Ufone and Paktel.
The survey was conducted in line with the detailed Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) which were mutually agreed between PTA and all the mobile phone operators. These indicators include server congestion, call connecting error, false messaging, frequent call drops and excessive and unjustified billing as a result of false messaging.
The tabulated results have shown that the quality of service is far below the minimum standards given in the licence.
So in order to ensure that the interests of the users are duly safeguarded and protected and that the licensee is providing the poor quality of telecom services to the users, a show cause notice has been served to the Mobilink,” says the press release.
It recalls that the first survey was carried out during May-June 2002 in five cities of Pakistan — Islamabad, Peshawar, Karachi, Lahore and Quetta. “The results of that survey were published in the newspapers and the cellular mobile operators were directed to improve their Quality of Service (QoS) standards within 90 days. The second survey on QoS was conducted between Jan 6, 2003 and Feb 8, 2003. On the proposal of the licensee, the Authority, that time, evolved a strategy to conduct the survey along with the detailed KPIs, which were mutually agreed between PTA and all the mobile operators. After scrutinizing the complaints and results of second QoS survey the Authority issued the show cause notice to the licensee on 20th February 2003, as results were found far below the standards given in the licence.
Based on the hearing held on June 2, 2003, the Authority passed its determination on June 6, 2003 and the licensee was directed to compensate its customers up to the extent of Rs60 million within 30 days of the order,” it says.
“The third survey of GSM operators (Mobilink and Ufone) was conducted from July to August 2004. The results of that survey were again not found up to the mark. Therefore, a warning was issued to the licensee.
A special complaint cell was established at the PTA headquarters in Jan 2002 where a large number of complaints were received. In view of these complaints, the Authority decided to conduct a fourth comprehensive QoS survey of all GSM operators in all major cities/motorway/highways from Feb 7, 2005 to Feb 27, 2005 jointly with the representatives of the licensees. The survey results show an extremely poor performance of the licensee in terms of quality of service provision.
The results are not only bad but far below the standards mentioned in the licence.
The non-serious and non-cooperative attitude of the licensee towards the determination and directions issued by the Authority from time to time tantamount to severe violations by the licensee of the existing regulatory framework and is therefore not acceptable to the Authority,” the press release says.
When contacted, a spokesman for Mobilink conceded that the mobile phone company had received the show-cause notice. He added that it would formulate its response and submit it to the PTA at the earliest.
