PTA Slaps Rs 68.9M in Fines on Telcos for Poor Network Performance as 9,000 Mobile Sites Struggle Nationwide

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has intensified its crackdown on poor quality of service, imposing penalties of nearly Rs 68.9 million on mobile operators over the past five years, even as thousands of cell sites across the country continue to suffer from network availability issues.

According to official documents, PTA issued 39 show-cause notices and 17 warning letters to telecom companies for failing to meet licensed service standards. Out of the total fines, about Rs 13.6 m have so far been recovered, while 11 penalty cases remain sub judice in various courts. An additional Rs 32.05 million has been secured as a bank guarantee in the Islamabad High Court.

Despite these enforcement measures, the scale of service disruption remains significant. The documents reveal that around 9,000 mobile sites across Pakistan are currently facing network availability problems. PTA attributes the outages to a combination of factors, including prolonged power load-shedding, right-of-way disputes, limited access to commercial electricity, theft, and incidents of vandalism at critical sites.

Service quality has deteriorated most sharply in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, and Gilgit-Baltistan, where the regulator notes that network performance has fallen to “alarming” levels and still does not meet license benchmarks, despite operators’ claims of improvement.

Consumer frustration is reflected in the volume of complaints. In just the first half of the current year, PTA received over 8,000 service-related grievances, ranging from call drops and weak signals to mobile data issues. The authority says 99.17 percent of these complaints were resolved through its Complaint Management System (CMS), which is accessible via a toll-free helpline (0800-55055), a mobile application, and an online portal.

To independently verify operators’ performance, PTA conducted 89 planned quality-of-service surveys and 78 complaint-based drive tests across the country this year, the documents show. Findings from these surveys have been used to initiate enforcement actions where standards were not met.

PTA maintains it is “committed to ensuring uninterrupted telecom services nationwide” and has urged parliamentarians, consumers, and other stakeholders to help identify areas with persistently weak or nonexistent coverage so that targeted interventions can be made. The regulator has called on operators to accelerate remedial efforts, strengthen backup power solutions, and secure vulnerable sites against theft and sabotage.

While the watchdog’s penalties and surveys underscore a tougher regulatory posture, the data also highlight the continuing gap between license obligations and ground reality, leaving millions of users, particularly in underserved regions, still struggling for reliable connectivity.

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