Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has issued regulations for all cellular operators aimed at ensuring maximum subscribers satisfaction on the quality of GPRS and EDGE services.
The regulations shall be called “GPRS/EDGE Quality of Service Standards Regulations, 2010.
PTA has explained the criterion of the quality of service shall be changed time to time keeping in view the emergence of new technology, demand of customers and capacity of cellular operators.
All licensees providing GPRS and EDGE services shall adopt the performance standards termed mandatory requirement by the authority, which can modify, delete and add standards for rating on the basis of the extend of coverage deployment and review of new technologies, the regulations stated.
All operators shall carry out quality of service testing of GPRS/ EDGE in accordance with availability network and services; link, upload and download speeds, mobility and retain-ability.
The test and surveys shall be designed to meet the applicability, end-to-end testing, ease of measurement and similar treatment of rural and urban region in terms of service offers.
The PTA may depute its representative for supervising quality of services surveys and testing to be carried out by operators themselves.
The cellular operators shall maintain record of all data collected against each quality of service survey, testing and different factors, which will be submitted to the authority at certain intervals. All record must be safe for next three years by operators as necessary compliance.
The cellular operators must update their data in analytical form so it is always open for inspection and audit of the authority or representative of authority, the regulations added.
The regulations said that the authority may conduct inspections, survey, test or make surprise checks through its representative. It may also conduct performance audit of operators’ quality of service from time tot time to ensure that users of telecommunication services get quality of services guaranteed by service providers.
PTA may decide to provide information of frequency testing, geographical routes and testing times to operators in advance on the basis of consumer complain record, coverage claim of the cellular operator and previous results.
The cellular operators shall extend full co-operation with all required assistance to inspecting officer of PTA in carrying out testing and surveys. The authority may engage, if required, a third party or a group of consultants to conduct a quality of service audit.
The inspecting officer shall prepare an inspection report of quality of service results, which clearly spell out shortfall observed during the testing process and submitted to the operators. The cellular operators shall take all remedial measures to remove the shortfalls identified in the report and submit a compliance report within 30 days by confirming that all shortfalls have been removed.
PTA will publish test or survey results and rating of the operators for information of general public.
Click the this link to view detailed copy of regulation. (PDF File – 285 KB)