Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) is still far behind in its project of replacing the old copper network with optical fiber in all major cities of the country. It has been learnt that due to poor service of the copper network, the company has been replacing the said network with optical fiber, but that too has not been done very efficiently.
For example, in the biggest city of the country Karachi the company has only upgraded Azizabad and Korangi industrial area exchanges in 2 years. Sources informed that up-gradation takes around a month’s time and this has been done in the late hours of the day as all connections of the area are closed before the work is started. “The company is revamping its old copper system since two years in Karachi, yet its too slow and industrial areas are the priority of the company, thus the common subscriber suffers,” sources added.
The company has around 70 per cent investment in its copper network, and this is the probable reason why it is taking so much time to replace the old system with optical fiber cables. One major hindrance in network expansion of the company is their huge investment in copper and it is extremely difficult for PTCL to get a ‘right of way’ for their network expansion today, sources said. Meanwhile, due to this problem, hundreds of applications for DSL and broadband connections remain pending at many different centers of the company and it not able to deploy the connections due to its slow network expansion, sources added.
There was a time when the company used to have 10 thousand broadband connection applications pending. Though this ratio has plausibly decreased, it is still in hundreds, according to sources. Sources informed that PTCL is suffering a poor network expansion, but at the same time it is engaged in a price war that is very damaging for the survival of Internet Service Providers (IPPs). These days the company is also facing a shortage of ‘drop wire,’ that is necessary element for a landline connection and this shortage is conducive in hampering the installation of DSL and broadband connections, especially in areas where the company has not yet installed optical fiber, sources added.
Market experts believe that if PTCL opens up their exchanges for other companies, the issue of low broadband growth in the country could easily be managed. On the other hand, some experts say that this is not a viable solution as PTCL had opened its exchanges for other companies, including Cyber net and Link dot net, but due to fast technological changes, the survival of those companies is very difficult with the presence of a giant, PTCL.
