KARACHI, Feb 6: The Pakistan Telecommunication Company overcharges its own more than 800,000 subscribers when they make telephone calls from their land lines to mobile phones.

Sources told Dawn here on Wednesday that for a telephone call made from a land line to a mobile phone, the PTCL charges Rs2.2 per minute as well as a 15 per cent general sales tax.

For a telephone call made from a mobile phone to a land line, the PTCL charges Rs2.01 for five minutes as well as a 15 per cent general sales tax.

“According to this highly inequitable formula, a land line user pays Rs10.10 for five minutes when he makes a telephone call from his land line to a mobile phone. But a mobile phone user pays Rs2.01 for five minutes,” they said.

Despite repeated attempts, the chairman of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, Maj-Gen Shahzada Alam, could not be contacted for his comments.

However, a well-placed source in the PTA told Dawn from Islamabad that the telecoms regulator was looking into this tariff anomaly.

“The PTA is aware of the fact that the PTCL charges its subscribers more when they make a telephone call from their land line to a mobile phone. The cellular phone users, however, pay normal charges.”

The source, however, said the PTA was reluctant to remove this tariff anomaly, adding that the “telecoms regulator does not want to decrease the profitability of the phone utility so much so that it loses its attraction when it is privatized”.

“Private investors will come to Pakistan only when the profitability of the PTCL is high. The PTA does not want to kill the phone industry by over-regulation.”

PTCL officials defended the practice of overcharging those subscribers who make telephone calls from their land lines to mobile phones.

“Those who make calls to mobile phones by their land lines utilize a premium service offered by the PTCL. It is only fair that they pay more for utilizing the premium service.”

The PTCL officials, however, admitted that the phone utility employed the same infrastructure for calls made from a land line to a mobile phone as it employed calls made from a mobile phone to a land line.

PTA officials told Dawn that in 1997 the telecoms regulator had fixed a maximum ceiling of airtime of Rs6.25 per minute. They added that all the four mobile companies — Mobilink, Instaphone, PakTel and Ufone — designed their variousprepaid and postpaid packages within the set maximum limit.

“Twice the PTA rejected the application of the mobile firms for an increase in the maximum limit of airtime tariff,” they said.

They added that recently the PTA had looked into a complaint of mobile phone users. “Some cellular phone users complained that their mobile company was charging them even immature calls. They said that at times even when the party called did not answer the phone, their mobile company charged them one call. Similarly, some mobile phone users complained that their cellular company was charging one call for those three rings which are not answered by the person called. These complaints turned out to be wrong.”