ISLAMABAD ( ABRAR MUSTAFA )
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) would soon introduce an application to help subscribers check their mobile internet speed and experience they may have with their operators.
The basic objective of this application is to ensure prompt redressal of consumers’ complaints with regard to Internet. First the application would be checked at the internal level of PTA and later it would be offered to subscribers, Chairman PTA, Dr. Syed Ismail Shah said.
He was talking to reporters at a 3rd National Workshop onTelecom Reporting, organized here by PTA for capacity building of Media persons, covering telecommunications sector.
The Chairman said the application can also give to users a quick confirmation of maximum speed they can achieve from their respective operators. The users can use this App to ensure if they are connected to the Internet. He said the application logs the network preference mode and
the operator of the users which can educate them to understand and differentiate among other operators.
Dr. Ismail Shah said having any speed related issue, the users can give their feedback which would help the operators to understand their governed issues. He said the other initiative, the authority going to take is establishment of internal exchanges province wise in order to regulate national traffic itself rather than relying on international exchanges.
He said PTA would make sure about Quality of Experience rather than just Quality of Services. Earlier, in his presentation, he said about 0.25 million blocked or unverified SIMs are being verified on daily basis.
He also highlighted vision of PTA and said by 2025, there will be need of about two billion SIMs of all mobile operators and the government is properly planning in this direction.
He said after biometric verification the total number of active verified SIMs reached 108 million on April 12, however,about 0.25 million blocked or unverified SIMs were being verified on daily basis. In this way, he said the number of verified SIMs would rise with the increase in the verification process. He also shared future plans and fundamental challenges and the major amongst them is cyber security issues.
Director General Web, Nisar Ahmed talked about general efforts and improvements taken by PTA.
Director General Enforcement Division of PTA, Yawar Yasin gave
brief presentation on few major enforcement activities being carried out by PTA and mainly talked about Mobile subscriber’s documentation, authentication activities (Biometric SIM Verification) and PTA’s efforts against grey traffic. He also appraised the surveys conducted by PTA to check radio frequency power levels/radiation.
He discussed re-verification exercise according to the National Action Plan and informed that till April 12, 2015, PTA and operators blocked 22 million SIMs.
He said Pakistan has witnessed phenomenal increase in mobile
subscribers base in last decade. The significant increase in subscribers base not only posed a challenge for PTA but also raised concerns of law enforcement agencies and the general public.