KARACHI, Oct 28: The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority baulks at taking action against the Pakistan Telecommunication Company. Sources told Dawn that the telecoms regulator had never sought to get significant market players – such as the PTCL and Mobilink – to improve their quality of service. They recalled that Mobilink was fined only once and the PTCL was never fined for offering poor quality of service.

They said that while telephone complaints appeared regularly in the press, especially in the correspondence pages of newspapers, the PTA did not take action against the PTCL.

The sources said the

PTA devoted far too much time to issues like determination of tariff and other policy matters.

“It is the PTA’s responsibility to ensure that phone facilities offered by various operators – both cellphone and landline – remained up to the mark,” said the sources.

A PTCL consumer told Dawn that his phone (4621743) had been out of order for quite some time. He added that he lodged a number of complaints with the Gulistan-i-Jauhar telephone exchange’s customer service centre, but to no avail.

Another PTCL subscriber of North Nazimabad said that his phone (6630855) had also been out of order for some time. He added that his complaints had also failed to get the PTCL customer service centre to repair the faulty connection.

A subscriber of the North Karachi telephone exchange said his telephone exchange was believed to be one of the best telephone exchanges in the city. He said that his phone remained out of order for a long time.

Many complaints had been lodged with the PTCL but no action had been taken by the phone utility to rectify the fault till he paid some money to a lineman who got the phone repaired within no time.

The spokesman for the PTA was not available for comment.