Talk show on Government’s recent Telecom Decisions

 

Talk show on Government’s recent Telecom Decisions

Permanently banning Mobile Number Portability (MNP) service was a big shock to the telecom industry in Pakistan.
The ban was imposed for security reasons but it looks like officials are still unclear about the ban. Recently Muhammad Malick of Dunya TV did a talkshow on these new measures of government to stop terrorism in country.

These measures Directed:

• The Ban on MNPs
• The telecos to deliver new SIMs at the CNIC address of customers.
• Cellular mobile operators (CMOs) to retrieve the entire stock of SIMs from their sales channels – customer service centres, franchises and retailers. The regulator asked CMOs to permanently stop selling SIMs through these channels from December 1

Mr. Malick had invited guests from PTA and telecom industry to talk about the concerns of regulator, industry, consumer and the government. Guests included:

• Chairman Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, Muhammad Farooq Awan
• Former CEO of Ufone, Arshad Khan
• Former COO Zong, Zafar Usmani
• Aamir Ibrahim, VP Telenor

The video of the talk show is given below:

We have noticed it in the video that the government official aren’t clear about what exactly do they want. Government bans MNP and on the other hand, Chairman of PTA said that MNP customers are easy to identify because they come through a manual process plus they keep using the same number for a long time period.

So we conclude that government took its recent decisions in emergency without giving importance to the long term impacts.
The Chairman said that government will reconsider its decision in collaboration with telecom industry.