TAHIR AMIN
ISLAMABAD: The number of 3G and 4G users in Pakistan reached 61.61 million by end-December 2018, said Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).
The number of mobile phone users in Pakistan reached 153.98 million by end-December compared to 152.74 million by end-November 2018, whi ch registered an increase of 1.24 million during a month.
Jazz’s total count for 3G users stood at 13.79 million by end-December compared to 14.069 million by end-November showing a decrease of 0.279 million. Jazz 4G user numbers jumped from 6.58 million by end-November 2018 to 7.053 million by end-December.
Zong 3G subscribers increased from 8.66 million by end-November to 8.69 million by end-December while the number of 4G users jumped from 9.32 million by end-November 2018 to 9.86 million by end-December.
The number of 3G users of Telenor network decreased from 9.32 million by end-November to 9.13 million by end-December. The number of 4G users jumped from 4.39 million by end-November to 4.73 million by end-December.
Ufone added 0.122 million 3G users on its network during the month of December as the total reached 8.339 million by end-December compared to 8.217 million by end of November 2018.
Teledensity for cellular mobile increased to 75.15 percent by end-December from 74.23 at end-November and number of broadband subscribers reached 63,773,916 by end-December compared to 62,771,327 by end-November 2018.
The PTA received 3,906 complaints from telecom consumers against different telecom operators, including (cellular operators, PTCL, LDIs, WLL operators and ISPs) as of December 2018.
According to the PTA data, Jazz (Mobilink + Warid) leads the chart with 981 complaints and Telenor stands at second position as the most complained telecom operator with 701 complaints.
The PTA said that it was able to get 3,890 complaints resolved i.e. 99.59 percent.
Cellular mobile subscribers constitute major part of overall telecom subscriber base; therefore, maximum number of complaints belongs to this segment. Total number of complaints against CMOs by December 2018 stood at 2,920.
In terms of the segregation of complaints on operator basis, a total of 981 complaints were received against Jazz which is 33.59 percent of the total CMO-related complaints. Telenor stood second with 701 complaints i.e. 24 percent of total complaints. Third was Zong with 687 complaints i.e. 23.5 percent of the complaints. Ufone had 551 complaints against its various services which make up 18.86 percent of the total CMO-related complaints.
