AGL 39.50 Increased By ▲ 1.78 (4.72%)
AIRLINK 177.35 Increased By ▲ 8.70 (5.16%)
BOP 10.09 Increased By ▲ 1.00 (11%)
CNERGY 6.85 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
DCL 9.91 Decreased By ▼ -0.14 (-1.39%)
DFML 43.25 Increased By ▲ 2.61 (6.42%)
DGKC 98.65 Increased By ▲ 5.41 (5.8%)
FCCL 39.15 Increased By ▲ 1.23 (3.24%)
FFBL 82.49 Increased By ▲ 3.77 (4.79%)
FFL 14.39 Increased By ▲ 0.93 (6.91%)
HUBC 121.52 Increased By ▲ 7.42 (6.5%)
HUMNL 15.30 Increased By ▲ 0.35 (2.34%)
KEL 5.70 Decreased By ▼ -0.05 (-0.87%)
KOSM 8.15 Decreased By ▼ -0.08 (-0.97%)
MLCF 48.21 Increased By ▲ 2.72 (5.98%)
NBP 75.50 Increased By ▲ 0.58 (0.77%)
OGDC 197.75 Increased By ▲ 4.82 (2.5%)
PAEL 32.15 Decreased By ▼ -0.09 (-0.28%)
PIBTL 8.15 Decreased By ▼ -0.42 (-4.9%)
PPL 177.05 Increased By ▲ 9.67 (5.78%)
PRL 34.11 Increased By ▲ 3.10 (10%)
PTC 22.60 Increased By ▲ 0.52 (2.36%)
SEARL 103.00 Increased By ▲ 2.17 (2.15%)
TELE 8.45 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
TOMCL 35.13 Increased By ▲ 0.29 (0.83%)
TPLP 11.20 Decreased By ▼ -0.04 (-0.36%)
TREET 19.29 Increased By ▲ 0.66 (3.54%)
TRG 58.50 Decreased By ▼ -2.24 (-3.69%)
UNITY 34.80 Increased By ▲ 2.82 (8.82%)
WTL 1.59 Decreased By ▼ -0.02 (-1.24%)
BR100 11,651 Increased By 362.1 (3.21%)
BR30 35,478 Increased By 1338.1 (3.92%)
KSE100 108,239 Increased By 3134.6 (2.98%)
KSE30 33,694 Increased By 1139.4 (3.5%)

ISLAMABAD: The government has notified “Cellular Mobile Network Quality of Service (QoS) Regulations 2021”, which will apply to all cellular mobile communication service and Next Generation Mobile Services (NGMS) licensees for the purposes of identifying the minimum quality of service standards and associated measurement, reporting and record keeping of mobile network coverage, voice, SMS and mobile broadband service.

With growing concerns on the quality of service parameters, including call drop, call quality, and data throughput, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) had decided to amend the cellular mobile network QoS regulations.

The QoS refers to the ability of a network or service to satisfy the end-user and is primarily linked with the aspects of services that are directly experienced by the consumers.

The compliance reports are required to be submitted in respect of quality of service parameters defined in these regulations.

MoIT&T issues NGMS auction policy directive

Every mobile communications service and NGMS licensee shall at all times meet or exceed the minimum requirements of quality of service specified in their respective licenses and in these regulations.

Network Accessibility —the probability that mobile services are available to an end customer by display of the network indicator on the mobile test equipment throughout the entire duration of the samples.

Network Accessibility should be 99 percent.

Percentage of time mobile device is reporting “no service” or “emergency” as served technology during the drive test duration.

“No service” or “emergency” is the period mobile services are neither available to an end customer nor display of the network indicator on the mobile equipment.

Network downtime — the probability that mobile services are not available to end customer.

PTA decides to amend cellular mobile network QoS regulations

Network down-time should be 1 percent.

Network Downtime shall be measured from the network management system (NMS) of the operator as an average of one month, either across all the outdoor sites deployed by the operator in the surveyed area and as well any other area, i.e., district, Tehsil, etc, provided by the Authority.

Call Setup Success Rate —”The probability that the end customer successfully access the mobile service when requested if it is offered by display of the network indicator on the mobile equipment”.

Call Setup Success Rate should be 98 percent.

Call setup time — The time between sending of complete call initiation information by the caller (A-party) and in return receipt of call setup notification.

Call Setup Time should be < 7.5 seconds (including Circuit Switched Fall Back (CSFB) time).

Call completion ratio — the probability that a service, once obtained, will continue to be provided under given conditions for a given time duration or until deliberately terminated by either A-party or B-party. Call completion ratio should be > 98 percent.

Call drop rate –the probability that a service, once obtained, will neither continue for a given time duration nor deliberately terminated by either A-party ort B-party.

Call drop rate < 2 percent.

End-to-end speech quality—the degree of speech quality that a listener perceives at the terminal with a talker at the other end.

Mean opinion score should be >3.

End-to-end service quality (mean opinion score) is represented by the average value of ITU-T P.863 “Perceptual objective listening quality analysis” (POLQA) predicted MOS of all speech samples in successfully established calls.

Measurement will be based on the latest version of ITU- P.863 to achieve the correct relative service quality between VoLTE, HD-Voice, and legacy narrowband telephony.

SMS Success Rate—”Probability that the short message service is delivered successfully, end-to end when requested and display of the relevant information on the mobile equipment”.

SMS success rate should be 99 percent.

End-to-End SMS delivery time — The time between sending a short message from a mobile terminal (A-Party) and receiving the very same short message at intended mobile terminal (B-Party).

End-to-End SMS delivery time should be 12 seconds.

With the increase of the subscriber base, customer dissatisfaction is increasing, and complaints against the network are also increasing.

Growing concerns on various QoS parameters, especially call drop, call quality, and data throughput, have been observed recently.

QoS parameters can be measured both from network monitoring terminals and field surveys through drive tests. With the adaptation of 3G and 4G technologies, it is about time to set some benchmarks/thresholds for Cellular Mobile Operators (CMOs), which they must comply with to ensure consumers’ satisfaction.

The PTA has stated that the QoS regulations 2011 and subsequent amendment in 2012 have a scope and applicability to all cellular mobile communication service to identify the minimum quality of service standards and associated measurement.

However, with the award of NGMS licensees, the regulations need to be amended per NGMS licenses and keeping in view the international best practices and ensuring the provision of best service quality to consumers of mobile services.

The existing regulations provide Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and measurement procedures, which are primarily concerned with voice service and SMS.

The regulations have not defined any KPI for NGMS or mobile broadband service. The QoS KPIs in cellular mobile network QoS regulations 2011, of voice and SMS services amendments, are suggested in the existing QoS KPIs regarding its measurement procedure and threshold values, etc.

The award of NGMS licenses has paved the way for the introduction of new QoS KPIs for Voice and Mobile Broadband.

The suggested QoS KPIs to be made part of the QoS Regulations are mentioned below.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021

Comments

Comments are closed.

Humayun Pervez Sep 19, 2021 06:15pm
Last line of the article: "The suggested QoS KPIs to be made part of the QoS Regulations are mentioned below." Mentioned below where???
thumb_up Recommended (0)
FAROOQ AHMED Sep 19, 2021 09:40pm
Nowadays, the worst 3G/4G service is of zong, especially in KP (swabi, buner, and Peshawar), followed by telenor, and then mobilink. Ufone is doing well, but has expensive packages
thumb_up Recommended (0)
Kashif Sajjad Sep 20, 2021 05:37am
Jazz has maybe the worst services in Pakistan. But PTA doesnt give a damn about that and its working just like that for public
thumb_up Recommended (0)
Azizullah khan Sep 20, 2021 02:54pm
Mobilink Jazz is 80 to 85 percent share and have domination in Mianwali district. But their services are going pathetic with each passing day. Now its time to say good bye to jazz.
thumb_up Recommended (0)
Umar Sep 22, 2021 05:45am
It should be noted that data tariff should be simplified and not restricted to be used during certain times like my network telenor. PTA website itself is very archaic and it needs to update itself and doesn't provide the service that consumers need
thumb_up Recommended (0)
Khalid Mahmood Shahzad Sep 22, 2021 03:18pm
I have been experiencing worst telenor 3G/ 4G service in Bahria Town Phase 8, Rawalpindi for a long long time. Inspite of repeated complaints no corrective measures have been taken by the company. PTA should take necessary action against Telenor.
thumb_up Recommended (0)