Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) is having talks with broadband operators to address the issue of offering lesser than advertised bandwidth, while charging full amount from the customers.
Sources told ProPakistani that the planning and development department of the authority is taking up the prolonged issue the subscriber faces of receiving reduced bandwidth against the amount they pay for the packages.
It has been learnt that a very common problem of the subscriber is that they don’t get the complete bandwidth against the charges they pay, and almost all the broadband providers in the country don’t provide advertised bandwidth to their subscribers.
The industry experts in this regard say it is the shared bandwidth the end user gets and that is largely dependent on the volume of traffic, like if the traffic is high during the peak hours, customers face service quality issues.
Sources at the PTA informed that technically the operators are allowed to multiply their E-1 (a basic unit of 2MB under the rules and regulations of international optical fiber) ten times, meaning that they can sell their 2MB package to 10 people under the shared agreement. The cost of one E-1 is not less than two thousand dollars, therefore, it is really costly for the common subscriber to get a dedicated 2MB connection.
Moreover, the whole communication industry works under the phenomenon of ‘probability’, which means the broadband service providers distribute the bandwidth on the conditions of probability to its subscribers.
This can best be illustrated by an example that if an operator gives its 2MB connection to 10 subscribers, it knows that not all the subscribers would be online – hence they start sharing the pipe with more than 10 subscribers. But when all of them get online, in parallel, issue of reduced bandwidth occurs and the subscriber faces the low bandwidth, they said.
Industry experts believe that internet is still slow and unreliable in the country, and the whole industry all over the world is getting more and more bandwidth hungry.
PTCL Evo and dsl operators should be scrutinized first.
PTA should proceed this as early as possible, because, I feel most of the broadband companies are just scamming their customers.
agree with Ahmed, PTCL EVO should be investigated first!!!
“he cost of one E-1 is not less than two thousand dollars, therefore, it is really costly for the common subscriber to get a dedicated 2MB connection.”
I am not sure you got the maths rights. If 2mb is for $2000 then 2000/10 = $200 per subscriber. Which is nor possible since Internet is far cheaper than that in Pakistan.
PTCL is giving 4 mb for about $25.
the OP is talking about some 0 year older price I think;)….
The bandwidth is very cheap nowadays and even PTCL 4Mb cheaper price is higher compare to most European and east Asian countries.
PTCL is going worst these days. Downloading speed of my 1 mbps doesn’t even cross 90 now :( Just a month ago it used to be 103 – 104. And everyday the DSL stops working like 5 – 10 minutes. Last night it didn’t work for 2 hours! What the hell is PTCL doing? I am thinking of changing provider!
What will you do ? go for wimax ? i dont think will capped downloads it is possible.
P.S. In the same boat as you.
PTCL Sucks, EVO is the one of third class product, as well PTCL has also third class staff.