The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has linked the floor price uplift mechanism for cellular mobile operators (CMOs) with a no-objection certificate (NoC) from the Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) to follow de-regulated market principles, official sources informed ProPakistani.
The CMOs had demanded a moratorium on quality-of-service, roll-out obligations, a moratorium on Universal Service Fund (USF), and an R&D fund reduction from two percent to one percent for a one-year duration and floor price uplift mechanism of voice and data to optimize base price.
The Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication asked the PTA to provide a response on the issues and furnish legal procedures as per the rules. Official sources revealed that the PTA informed the MoITT that the Authority may consider data floor price demand by operators subject to the NoC from the CCP.
Sources added that some operators are providing data at a lower tariff to their subscribers, which does not suit bigger operators and hence the latter wanted a fixed base price after operators can set their own prices.
However, the PTA has linked the revision and sitting floor price with CCP NoC to avoid the monopoly of some operators.
Official sources in the PTA further added that telecom is a de-regulated sector in the country, and hence, it can fix floor prices on its own, unless all operators agree. In such situations, the CCP is the relevant forum to ensure competition and market principles to avoid monopoly, the sources added.
The PTA has, however, rejected the CMOs’ demand of placing a moratorium on the quality of services and agreed on placing a moratorium on rollout obligations on a case-to-case basis.
