KARACHI, Aug 3: The network of Mobilink has been playing up of late, making it extremely difficult for its more than 600,000 subscribers to make and receive telephone calls.

Well-placed sources told Dawn on Saturday that Mobilink was keeping its subscribers in the dark about the fact that the network would remain unreliable, if not completely down, as long as the upgradation work continued.

“While no official announcement has been made, Mobilink is upgrading its network so that it could have as many as one million subscribers,” they said.

At present, Mobilink has about 600,000 subscribers but it plans to have one million subscribers. Other mobile phone companies — Instaphone, Ufone, etc — lag far behind as far as the customer base is concerned.

“Given the tremendous growth potential of cellular communications in Pakistan, Mobilink is determined to make its presence more pronounced,” official sources said.

An irate caller told Dawn that he had not been able to use his mobile since morning because his Mobilink connection did not work at all. “Every time I make a phone call even to my Mobilink number, a recorded message says that I can ‘record my message after the beep’. The interesting — or shall I say irritating? — thing is that I do not have a recording facility,” he added.

A Karachi Stock Exchange broker called Dawn to give vent to his feelings. “In my line of business, it is very important to be in touch with people. What is the use of keeping a mobile phone if my sources cannot call me and give me significant tip-offs.”

Another angry caller said he had been dialling a Mobilink number for the past half-an-hour without success. He added that it was beyond him why Mobilink was determined to expand its customer base when it was unable to provide good service to the existing subscribers.

In August last year, the network of Mobilink had also crashed but it had kept its subscribers in the dark that it was carrying out upgradation work.