A Journey From Telenor to Tele-NOT

telenor_logoPakistan Telecommunication Authority is usually responsible for keeping an eye on quality of service that cellular and other telecom operators provide.

Because regulator is almost dysfunctional (for last many months now) the falling service quality of cellular operators has reached to a point that it has started causing serious annoyance for mobile phone users in the country.

This is true for almost every operator in various parts of the country, but Telenor customers are said to be facing the worst quality issues these days and the problem stretches across the country. That’s defiantly due to the up-gradation of Telenor’s network during which services are likely to remain degraded.

This network up-gradation is a valid and unavoidable reason, but the amount of time and the the magnitude of disruption it is causing is raising concerns amongst the customers.

Networks get upgraded, which is routine part of life cycle for technology companies, however doing so without informing customers is quite harsh and unethical. Same is happening in case of Telenor which is consistently advertising its products and services but hasn’t aired / published a single communication regarding the network up-gradation and possible down-times / degraded services.

Telenor said that they inform impacted customers only via SMS, however, we are told that not all customers receive such text message. Reason: Text messages are sent over the same degraded network.

Due to in-availability of information, customers get the impression that Telenor deliberately disconnects their calls or degrades the call quality to earn extra from the customers.

At a time when customers are in hopeless situation, as there is not regulatory pressure on Telenor, they are now writing letters to editors in various papers to express their agony.

One such Telenor customer wrote:

I am a businessman and facing huge network problems due to my ‘Norwegian operator’.Whenever I am in the middle of an important call, it drops unexpectedly, sometimes when we are in a business conference call with our clients, the call gets disconnected, giving a very bad impression, as well as being bad for business. Trying to reconnect is not only difficult but also a waste of time which is bad for international business.

I have had the misfortune of getting connected to wrong numbers frequently costing me a lot of money. The services that should be urgent, such as sending SMS, are badly delayed by my service provider.

This cellular company has completely spoiled the idea of mobile phones, which was ‘instant connectivity.’

It is hoped that Telenor’s network will get up-graded at earliest and customers will be finally offered the European quality of service that company had promised at the time of launch in Pakistan.

It merits mentioning here that Mobilink was once imposed a fine of Rs. 60 million for poor quality of service — that was the time when Mobilink was widely known as May-Be-Link. A similar action is due again, but because democracy is in action and regulator is in state of hibernation, it is hoped that someone will rise up again to keep check and balances on the quality of service that telecom operators offer.

Tech and telecom reporter for over 15 years


  • The first thing i hear when i get a call ” APi awaz nahi a rahi ” the service of telenor is so poor that i can not complete a single call every time … this is just pathetic … I am porting my number

  • Not only because of current network UpGradatoin we usually encounter and experience the worst service experience among the operators we have seen around us.

  • I am suffering the same case with Warid where in spite of my regular payments my service is blocked mentioning i havent made any payment since last Aug 12.How the hell on this earth is Warid kind enough to resume my services since last 6 months if i have not paid.Secondly when i complained the same to the franchise business as my nearest business centre got closed I was referred to the NEAREST BUSINESS CENTRE and what they mentioned is due to migration of new systems ur services are blocked.In order to resume it u have to pay the bill ie 8000 rs.If u cannot pay then u have to wait for the systems to get updated and none of the representatives were able to answer the expected time when it will get resolved.I am very sure many of the Warid post paid users must be facing this issue as at the Business centre I have witnessed really heated up discussions between the customers and the Warid CC Staff

  • Its not only Telenor. All others have problems and fleecing Pakistanis on one package or other.Alluring texts from these Cellular Operators particularly from European and mobillink are doing it in absence of zero control by PTA. Billions are spent on advertising on all TV channels. These ads have become a nuisance and are frequently discussed in families and friends as negative approach by these Companies. These companies are deceiving poor simple Pakistanis. Not a single program has appeared on TV because their ads a big source of income for them. Who cares for the interests of Consumers in this country.

  • This forum is open for comments from Cellular companies own marketing person and they really own it with different name. In first few comments I read alot about Warid network which is outperforming all networks. I am not Telenor customer neither I am in Pakistan but as a Telecom professional what i know its just matter of time. All over the world network upgrades are inevitable because equipment reaches end of life and support from vendor.

    Now coming toward Telenor scenario, one should not do negative propaganda on media because of minor issue. When i was in Pakistan i heard that only 1-3% of customers who face an issue and report it to service provider. If this is the case how one can know that customer is facing a problem. A customer can face call drops and waste money but dont make a call of few rupees to report issue. Customer experience can never be checked in all locations and at all the time because its practically not possible to optimize user experience just looking at KPIs of network. Network upgrades involve problems and take time in tuning because whole radio environment changes with it.
    Its responsibility of customer to report issue on hand they face rather than keep facing problem or switching the networks.

  • Is it possible that I send an SMS to a contact in my phone book, but it is received by another number? It happend many times with me, even I checked my sent items it was sended to number I intended to send. I asked from helpline and they said it is impossible. I am using Ufone. Same thing happened to a friend and he is using Mobilink.

  • I can personally vouch for the fact that Telenor did send messages to its customers whenever the network upgrade was taking place.

    Kindly view the basic telecom principles, the site where the upgrade activity is performed, the subscribers of only that site are broadcasted with the message that they may face service degradation, why would all the subscribers be sent the same text if no such upgrade was taking place in their area?

    I think the author carries a personal grudge of some sort against the company. As far as the wrong call connection is concerned, I faced the same problem when I was using Warid, but I didn’t drum it up and blow it out of proportion!

    Again, the network upgrade is indeed a very big deal, and telenor did apologize via texts and pre-informed the subscribers! I think this is a very baseless article, being a technology blog I think you should be impartial and fair while reporting!

    And all the fellows pointing fingers at ZTE just because its chinese, you’re missing the point here, they are the biggest manufacturers (Chinese) and they make as ordered, the Nike you wear, the HP you use … all are manufactured in China, I don’t hear you all complaining about that!

  • telenor is really pathetic i cant complete a single call these days, switching to some other network very soon

  • i am using telenor for past 6 years and facing pathetic service outages and call drops problems for past 1 year .I am thanking to change my network. Even we don’t have telenor signals during power outages what a shit….

  • we shifted from mobilink to Telenor and are quite happy with them. These disruptions are temporarily so we are no way going back to maybelink

  • there is someone from telenor corporate security also left from central. fall under corporate affairs division.. what is going on with telenor?


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