ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Telecommuni-cation Authority (PTA) has linked floor price uplift mechanism for cellular mobile operators (CMOs) with no-objection certificate (NoC) from the Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) to follow de-regulated market principles, official sources revealed to Business Recorder.
The CMOs had demanded moratorium on quality-of-service, roll out obligations, moratorium on Universal Service Fund (USF) and R&D fund reduction from two per cent to one per cent for one year duration and floor price uplift mechanism of voice and data to optimise base price. The Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication asked the PTA to provide response on the issues and furnish legal procedure as per rules. Official sources revealed that the PTA informed the MOIT that the Authority may consider data floor price demand by operators subject to the NOC from the CCP.
Sources revealed that some operators are providing data a lower tariff to their subscribers, which is do not suit to bigger operators and hence the later wanted a fix base price, after operators can set their own prices. However, the PTA has linked the revision and sitting floor price with CCP NOC to avoid monopoly of some operators.
Sources in the PTA further stated telecom is de-regulated sector in the country, and hence, it can fix floor price at its own, unless all operators agree. In such situations, the CCP is the relevant forum to ensure competition and market principles to avoid monopoly, the sources added. The PTA has, however, rejected the CMOs demand of placing moratorium on quality of services and agreed on placing moratorium on rollout obligations on case-to-case basis.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.