Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has said that it received 36.092 complaints from telecom consumers against different telecom (operators including cellular operators, PTCL, LDIs, WLL operators and ISPs) during July 2013 to June 2014 as compared to 29,714 complaints during the corresponding period in previous year
PTCL leads the chart with Telenor to stand at second position for most complained telecom operators.
PTA said that it was able to get 97.9 percent complaints resolved.
Cellular mobile subscribers constitute major part of overall telecom subscriber base, therefore, maximum number of complaints belong to this segment. Total number of complaints against CMOs during FY2014 stood at 22,271 as compared to 17,948 registered in FY2013.
Out of these total complaints, 50% of the complaints were related to misuse of service which includes obnoxious, fraudulent and undesired communication as well as the blocking of SIMs involved in spam.
Illegal practices (13.7%) and verification issues (7.6%) related to or using mobile SIMs are also a major part of the total complaints against CMOs which were dealt by the introduction of biometric SIM verification system by PTA.
MNP related issues (6.8%), billing complaints (3.2%) and poor customer service (3%) have also been registered with the Authority frequently.
In terms of the segregation of complaints on operator basis, a total of 7,372 complaints were received against Telenor which is 33% of the total CMO related complaints. Ufone, despite, being the fourth biggest operator subscriber wise, had 4,513 complaints against its various services which make up 20% of the total CMO related complaints.
Mobilink, which had the biggest share in complaints during the last few years dropped to third spot with only 4,224 complaints (19%) registered against its name during FY2014.
Zong has 16% share of the total complaints against CMO as 3,510 complaints were received by the Authority against the operator during FY2014.
Warid, the smallest operator in cellular market, also had the smallest share of only 2,602 complaints i.e. 12% of the total CMO complaints. PTA took up and pursued these complaints with the CMOs and managed to effectively resolve 98% of the complaints registered during FY2014.
During FY2014, PTA received a total of 13,458 complaints against PTCL as compared to 11,168 complaints during the corresponding period last year.
Faults/disruption in service remains to be the major issue regarding PTCL’s services as more than 71% of the total complaints against the operator belong to this category. Being a fixed line operator, it requires door to door services for quick rederessal of complaints.
The need for up gradation and maintenance of the existing infrastructure by PTCL is very much evident as depicted in above figure and to come up to the expectations of the customers.
Among other areas of concern are poor customer services, QoS issues, and provision of services as per the complaints registered by PTA’s Complaint management system.
IMEI blocking facility introduced by PTA in 2006 is one of the major initiatives of PTA to assist the Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) to curb the rising incidents of stolen, lost and snatched mobile phones by culprits in Pakistan.
PTA not only blocks the use of a reported handset on any cellular network in Pakistan but also helps unblock the phone in case the handset is recovered by the owner.
Since the launch of this service, a total of 877,568 IMEIs have been blocked by PTA as reported by the handset owners till June, 2014. Out of these, 48,394 IMEIs were unblocked after successful recovery of the handsets.
During FY2014, a total of 95,750 IMEIs were blocked after scrutiny of the received complaints while 3,497 IMEIs were unblocked.