Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has directed all cellular mobile operators of Pakistan to ensure quality of their services during Eid and other such occasions and inform their subscribers adequately about withdrawal of any packages and bundle offers prior to their suspension. PTA issued these directions in a meeting with all mobile operators held at PTA Headquarters.

Operators were asked to ensure inclusion of adequate information in media campaign with regard to validity period of the SMS bundle package offer along with operatorâ??s discretion to withdraw the said offer. It was directed that the operators shall intimate the Authority well in advance whether the SMS bundle package has been withdrawn during the occasions such as Eids/New years etc. Operators shall also ensure provisioning of quality of services to their subscribers during the period of upcoming Eid-ul-Azha.

It may be mentioned that value-added services offered by mobile operators such as SMS are un-regulated services in terms of pricing and validity. Further, the bundled packages are optional services offered by the operators which require consumers to opt-in and agreeing to the terms and conditions offered by the operators. Since SMS bundle packages are not mandatory packages, PTA is only regulating quality of services whereby the operators are required to conform to the quality parameters as per the license terms and conditions.

It was also observed that on the occasion of Eid ul Fitr some of mobile operators had blocked their SMS bundle offer packages without prior notice to the subscribers and the PTA. In this connection, PTA received several complaints from mobile subscribers against those operators who had withdrawn their SMS bundle packages silently. This matter was also highlighted in the media. PTA took strict notice of the situation and wrote to all mobile operators demanding their explanations. Now, PTA arranged this meeting with mobile operators to discuss the same issue before the forthcoming event of Eid and issued necessary instructions so that the practice should not be repeated by the operators.

Khurram A.Mehran
Director (PR)