Amid rampant grievances of consumers against telecommunication service providers, the PTA has said it would soon launch a service allowing consumers to know all SIM connections issued against their name by just sending an SMS.
Chairman PTA Dr Mohammad Yaseen said while speaking to audience of a consumer forum organised by the authority at a local hotel on Friday. Senior representatives of telecom operators, consumer rights organisations, academia, media and other concerned stakeholders attended the forum titled ‘Together for consumer rights’.
Audience of the seminar representing telecom sector consumers from various walks of life, expressed serious concerns over lack or weaknesses of regulatory mechanisms to check and control deceiving and dubious marketing methods of telecom service providers, especially the operators of cellular phone service, causing serious damage to economic interests of the telecom subscribers.
Kokab Iqbal of Consumer Association said that someone formally representing any consumers’ body should have been properly invited to speak at the forum in order to describe in detail viewpoint of subscribers on state and quality of the telecom services being provided in the country.
Speaking on the occasion, the Chairman PTA said that PTA was working on formulation of Spam Regulations under which consumers would be facilitated against unwanted and obnoxious SMS and calls.
He said that PTA has already introduced Consumer Regulations 2009 wherein issues such as misleading advertisements, call charges and problems related to tariffs of mobile companies have been addressed.
Dr Yaseen said the PTA is cognizant of grievances of telecom consumers and taking number of steps to resolve their issues. In this regard the PTA has revamped complaint handling mechanism of mobile companies, those of the PTCL and other telecom operators.
A subscriber can launch a complaint with its relevant operator and in case complaint is not resolved consumer can approach PTA Consumer Cell.
Dr Yaseen said the PTA would switch on to a new service in September which would enable a mobile user to know all SIM connections details issued against his name by just sending his CNIC to 668. This would help in detecting real identification of a SIM user. This new service is part of PTA efforts to block all illegal SIMs and clean the data of the mobile phone users, he added.
He said that under new regulations operators have been asked to seek consumer consent before activation of any new package.
While responding to various queries of participants the PTA chief said that PTCL management have been working to improve its system and they have ensured PTA to make appropriate steps to provide its consumers best services.
Speaking at the occasion Senior Executive Vice President PTCL Sikandar Naqi shared the challenges involved in fixed telecom operations and the measures initiated by PTCL for the safeguard of interests of its consumer
Naqi informed the audience that PTCL has significantly improved the quality of its call centers through system automation and extensive trainings of customer support representatives.
He said the PTCL has acquired over 250,000 broadband Internet subscribers in just two years time and broadband services are available in over 170 cities.
Pingback: Consumers may get to know SIMs issued in their name | Telecom News … « aneas.net