The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has found fresh problems with mobile call quality and internet services in parts of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, after its teams went out and tested the networks on the ground rather than relying on figures supplied by the operators themselves. The inspection covered some of the busiest roads and public places in the twin cities, and while services were found to be broadly satisfactory in most of the areas checked, the teams still came across clear shortcomings in call quality and mobile internet at certain locations.
PTA Chairman Major General (Retd) Hafeez Ur Rehman led the exercise himself, personally testing mobile calls and internet services as the inspection went on. Three special teams were sent out at the same time to assess 4G coverage, call connectivity, voice quality, overall network performance and mobile internet speeds at different points across the two cities. Representatives of the telecom companies travelled with the teams, along with officials from the Ministry of IT and Telecommunications and senior PTA officials, so that any problem found could be seen first hand by the people responsible for fixing it.
The inspection took in Islamabad International Airport, Srinagar Highway and the Islamabad Expressway on the capital side, and Rawat T-Chowk, Murree Road, Rawal Road and the areas around the Old Airport in Rawalpindi. These are among the busiest places in the twin cities, and a dropped call or a stalled connection there is felt at once, whether by a traveller trying to book a ride, a shopkeeper taking a digital payment, or a commuter working from the road.
The first assessment was mixed rather than alarming. In most of the places inspected, mobile call and data services were found to be generally satisfactory, which suggests that the networks in the twin cities are holding up under everyday demand. But the teams also identified definite shortcomings in call quality and internet services at certain locations, and those gaps were enough for the regulator to act on the spot. Following the findings, the PTA chairman issued instructions to the mobile operators present, directing them to address the problems identified and to raise service standards in the areas concerned.
The exercise matters because it is a reminder that the quality of a mobile network cannot be judged from a coverage map or an average speed figure alone. A network can look strong on paper while still failing a user standing in a particular street, inside a crowded building, or at a busy interchange at rush hour. That is why the PTA has long combined its desk-based monitoring with field surveys, sending teams out to measure what subscribers actually experience when they make a call, open a video, or load a page. The authority also works with independent measurement firms to benchmark the networks. In its most recent quarterly exercise, carried out with Opensignal, more than 1.25 billion measurements were collected from real smartphone users across 161 districts over a 90-day period, covering download speed, upload speed, video quality, gaming and the time users spend connected to a network.
That national benchmarking put the average mobile download speed in Pakistan at 18.60 megabits per second, with uploads averaging 5.59 megabits per second, and it found that performance varies sharply from city to city and from operator to operator, with Jazz, Telenor, Zong 4G and Ufone trading the lead on different measures in different places. Islamabad and Rawalpindi have generally scored among the stronger cities in these comparisons, which makes the fresh problems found in the latest field inspection all the more notable. If weak spots persist even in the capital region, where investment and infrastructure are at their densest, the challenge in smaller cities and rural districts is likely to be greater still.
For subscribers, the practical question now is what the operators do next. The PTA chairman’s on-the-spot directions carry weight because the authority is the regulator, and it can press operators to remedy faults and follow up with further checks. The operators will be expected to find the cause of the weak spots, whether that means a congested cell site, a gap in coverage, or equipment that needs attention, and to report back on what has been fixed. The twin cities are a demanding test for any network, and that pressure is only growing as more of daily life moves onto mobile data.
There is also a wider lesson in the way this inspection was carried out. By putting its own chairman and its own teams on the streets, the PTA has signalled that it intends to judge service quality by what users actually get, not by what the operators report. If the follow-up checks show that the problems found this week have been put right, the exercise will have done its job. If they have not, the authority will have the evidence it needs to push harder, and subscribers in Islamabad and Rawalpindi will be watching to see whether their calls connect cleanly and their internet holds up the next time they travel the same roads.
