Islamabad, The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has completed an extensive Quality of Service (QoS) Survey to evaluate the performance and quality of services provided by Cellular Mobile Operators (CMOs) across various regions in Pakistan. The survey encompassed 17 cities across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, and three cities in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), marking a significant effort to gauge the current standards of mobile communications services offered to consumers.
According to Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, the survey meticulously covered 14,000 kilometers over 79 days, including major roads, service roads, and significant sectors/colonies, to ensure a comprehensive assessment. Utilizing mobile handsets set to technology auto-detect and 3G locked modes, the PTA team conducted over 0.25 million tests for Data, 45,000 for Voice and SMS, and 0.13 million tests in Ookla. These tests, facilitated by automated QoS Monitoring and Benchmarking Tools, aimed to verify compliance with the Next Generation Mobile Service (NGMS) licenses and the Cellular Mobile Network Quality of Service (QoS) Regulations 2021.
The survey’s findings were revealing, with CMOs ranked from 1st to 5th based on their mobile network coverage and voice services. In the mobile broadband speed segment, rankings considered various factors such as data download and upload speeds, network latency, and webpage loading times. Results indicated that, overall, CMOs complied with upload and download speed requirements significantly, showing improvements in network latency and webpage loading times compared to previous assessments. Nonetheless, some voice service Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) did not meet the licensed thresholds in certain areas. It was noted that operators utilizing advanced technologies like LTE Carrier Aggregation and Voice over LTE (VoLTE) tended to offer superior quality of service.
In response to these findings, the PTA has issued instructions to operators to undertake necessary improvements to align with quality standards. The full results of the survey are accessible on the PTA’s official website, offering transparency and insights into the performance of Pakistan’s mobile networks.
Through this rigorous service quality monitoring, the PTA aims to motivate operators to elevate their service standards and foster healthy competition within the telecommunications industry.