Pakistan’s telecom regulator has taken its scrutiny from paperwork to the streets. Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) Chairman Hafeez-ur-Rehman personally toured Islamabad and Rawalpindi on Thursday to test mobile voice and data services himself, days after the authority’s 31 October deadline for operators to fix coverage gaps in the twin cities expired.
The chairman visited busy commercial and residential areas including Blue Area and Sectors G-7, G-8, G-9 and G-11, as well as Srinagar Highway, checking call connectivity and running software-based tests on internet speeds and data quality. Representatives of the mobile operators accompanied him — and areas that fell short of the required standards were flagged on the spot for corrective action.
What the chairman tested on the ground
Unlike routine desk reviews, Thursday’s exercise measured what subscribers actually experience. The chairman personally tested whether calls connected and held, and used software tools to check the speed and quality of mobile data in each location he visited. It was a deliberate shift from relying on operators’ own compliance reports to verifying conditions first-hand.
The inspection had been announced a day earlier, when it was reported that operators had been paying extra attention to network performance in the areas expected to come under scrutiny. Thursday’s visit was the test of whether those improvements were real — and the chairman’s team measured the networks as subscribers find them, not as they appear in company filings.
No compromise on service standards
Hafeez-ur-Rehman left no doubt about the authority’s stance. “We will not compromise on service standards, nor grant exemptions to those failing to meet benchmarks,” he said during the visit. The message was aimed squarely at operators: meeting the PTA’s requirements is not optional, and falling short will carry consequences.
The chairman also signalled that field inspections will become a regular feature of the authority’s work. PTA officials, he said, will increasingly engage in ground-level monitoring rather than limiting oversight to office settings — a change subscribers have been demanding for years as dropped calls and slow data persisted despite repeated assurances.
The 31 October deadline and the 900-site drive
Thursday’s inspection was the direct follow-up to the PTA’s 31 October deadline, set to close gaps in mobile coverage and improve network reliability in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, where rapid urban growth has pushed demand for seamless connectivity ever higher. With the deadline now passed, the authority is moving from warnings to verification.
The field visit also builds on earlier enforcement work. Before the chairman’s tour, the PTA’s Director General of Enforcement, Brigadier (retired) Amir Shahzad, had already conducted network drive tests at various strategic locations, identifying specific coverage deficiencies and directing operators to fix them quickly. Separately, the authority has inspected more than 900 tower sites across Pakistan to address power failures, battery faults and fibre-optic issues affecting service quality.
Eyes on 4G stability — and 5G
While the immediate focus was on current services, the chairman also underlined that the authority is working to ensure a smooth rollout of 5G. Reliable 4G and the gradual introduction of 5G are expected to drive Pakistan’s digital transformation, supporting business, education and everyday communication for millions of users.
For subscribers in the twin cities, the hope is straightforward: that the areas flagged during Thursday’s inspection are actually fixed, and that the scrutiny does not fade once the chairman’s convoy has moved on. The PTA has now seen the networks with its own eyes — the test is what happens next.
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