ISLAMABAD: The number of broadband subscribers in Pakistan had reached 61 million by the end of August 2018, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) confirmed.
The telecom industry has seen a dramatic increase in mobile broadband over the past five years, as subscribers reached 58.56 million by the end of August 2018 with a teledensity of 28.02. On the other hand, basic telephony subscribers reached three million with 1.30 per cent teledensity.
The number of mobile phone users in Pakistan reached 151.09 million by the end of August compared to 150.55 million by the end of July, an increase of 0.54 million during the period under review.
Jazz’s total count for 3G users stood at 15.045 million by end August compared to 15.038 million by end of July, registering an increase of 0.007 million. Jazz 4G user numbers jumped from 4,601,586 by the end of July to 5,077,651 by the end of August.
Zong 3G subscribers decreased from 9.228 million by the end of July to 9.034 million by the end of August, while a number of 4G users jumping from 7,761,412 in July to 8,131,792 in August.
The number of 3G users of Telenor decreased from 10.314 million by the end of July to 10.210 million by the end of August. The number of 4G users jumped from 3,315,326 by the end of July 2018 to 3,590,494 in August.
Ufone added 0.412 million 3G users on its network during the month of August. The total number of 3G subscribers has now reached 7.474 million compared to 7.060 million by the end of July 2018.
Teledensity for cellular mobile increased to 72.97 per cent when compared to 72.83 per cent in June 2018. The number of broadband subscribers reached 60,756,678 by the end of August, as compared to 59,549,253 by the end of July.
PTA has received 3,477 complaints of telecom consumers against different telecom operators, including cellular operators, PTCL, LDIs, WLL operators and ISPs as of August 2018.
According to PTA’s data, PTCL led the chart with 1,157 complaints while Jazz (Mobilink + Warid) stood at the second position as the most complained-against telecom operator with 779 complaints.
PTA claimed that it was able to get 3,465 complaints resolved i.e. 99.65 per cent. Cellular mobile subscribers constitute a major part of the overall telecom subscriber base; therefore, the maximum number of complaints belong to this segment. The total number of complaints against cellular mobile operators (CMOs) by August 2018 stood at 2,220.
In terms of the segregation of complaints on operator basis, a total of 779 complaints were received against Jazz which is 35.09 per cent of the total CMO-related complaints. Telenor, which has the second largest number of consumers, was second with 502 i.e. 22.61 per cent of complaints were received against it.
Zong stood third with 499 complaints i.e. 22.47 per cent of total complaints, while Ufone had 440 complaints against its various services which make up 19.81 per cent of the total CMO-related complaints.
