The recently issued notice to Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) by the regulator was considered to be based on last year’s survey results. However, this has not been the case.
Sources informed Pakistan Today that PTCL has recently been issued a show-cause notice on the results of the survey of its land line segment conducted six months ago by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).
The authority had announced on its website that a notice has been given to PTCL that advises the company to improve its quality of service in the duration of six months to avoid strict legal action.
In addition, it was claimed that the penalty would be based on the show-cause notice given on February 4, 2010. Sources, however, have disagreed and informed that the regulator conducted a survey to check the quality of the company’s land line segment some six months back and the results of that survey disclosed the failure of the company in maintaining standards of quality.
The lingering faults, bad network as distribution points were found open, increased line faults and bad maintenance were among issues found in that quality survey of land line segment of the company, sources informed. Similarly, it was seen that the company was not maintaining the complaint redress time of 24 hours and had failed to maintain the said criteria, sources added.
Interestingly, the authority that comprises upon chairman, technical member and finance member were divided over the time given to PTCL in the notice for maintaining its quality standards. In the PTA order, technical member and finance member gave six months as the notice period for PTCL to enhance its services, while the chairman stressed that 29 days were enough in this regard.
“Since, the authority is unanimously unsatisfied with the reply of the licensee (PTCL) and has concluded that the licensee has failed to provide the QoS to its customers as per the standards laid down in license and the regulations on the subject, therefore, I disagree with the enforcement order passed by both members for granting six months for remedying contraventions,” the chairman said.
However, it has been learnt that PTA while considering the submissions of PTCL decided to dispose of the show-cause notice, dated February 4, 2010. Sources questioned the authority for issuing a notice to PTCL, recently, on the basis of survey results if the show-cause notice of last year had been disposed.
Recently, the Cabinet Division terminated the Member Finance PTA Nasrul Karim Ghaznavi on directives of the Supreme Court regarding termination of contractual officers from the government offices.
The tenure of member of the authority is for four years and the said member technical was given one extension some two years ago against rules that do not allow any extension according to the telecommunication act, sources said.
