PTA Admits 9,000 Mobile Sites Affected by Power Outages

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has confirmed that around 9,000 mobile network sites, about 17% of all sites in the country, are still facing availability problems due to long power outages, limited access to commercial electricity, delays in securing Right of Way (RoW), and frequent cases of theft and vandalism. These issues have affected network quality in several regions, especially Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, and Gilgit-Baltistan. According to the PTA’s latest document, all cellular operators generally met service benchmarks for call completion and data throughput between January and June 2025. The OSS KPI analysis for this six-month period showed strong nationwide results, with average call completion at 99.05% and average data throughput at 6.73 Mbps. However, overall network availability stayed below the required 99% threshold due to energy shortages and challenges in accessing sites on the ground. PTA reported receiving 8,003 complaints about poor coverage and service quality through its Complaint Management System (CMS) during the first half of 2025. Of these, 7,937 complaints, 99.17% were resolved. The authority also conducted 89 planned and 78 complaint-based quality of service surveys across major cities, highways, motorways, and railway routes to check network performance. PTA said enforcement actions are being taken against operators that fail to meet service standards. Non-compliances are being followed up with licensees to ensure timely correction. Stakeholders and public representatives have also been urged to report specific trouble spots so that service issues can be fixed more efficiently. Over the past five years, PTA has issued 39 show cause notices and 17 warning letters to operators for failing to meet service requirements. These actions have led to penalties totaling Rs 68.9 million, of which Rs 13.6 million has been recovered so far, while 11 cases remain under litigation.