NA committee pushes for lower smartphone taxes, better telecom services

The National Assembly Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunication on Tuesday called for a reduction in taxes imposed on smartphones, while coming down hard on mobile operators over deteriorating service quality.

The committee, chaired by Syed Amin Ul Haque, expressed serious concern over persistent complaints of poor voice and data services across the country and directed Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTML), to appear before its next meeting to explain the operator’s performance.

The committee also took up the issue of high taxation on mobile phones, with lawmakers terming smartphones a basic necessity rather than a luxury item.

Briefing the committee, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) Chairman Major General (Retd) Hafeez Ur Rehman said taxes and duties on smartphones were as high as 60%, discouraging digital adoption.

He clarified that the levies were not imposed by the PTA and that the authority annually recommends to the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication that taxes on mobile devices be reduced.

“PTA only whitelists mobile devices. We do not even determine how much tax is charged on a particular handset,” he said.

Haque supported the proposal, stating that smartphones had become an essential tool for education, business and communication and should no longer be treated as luxury products.

The PTA chairman further informed the committee that 37 companies had been licensed to manufacture mobile phones in Pakistan and around 26 million handsets were now being assembled locally, while only about 8% of mobile phones were being imported. The committee then turned its attention to the deteriorating quality of telecom services.

Committee members complained that mobile service quality had steadily worsened in major urban centres, including Islamabad and Karachi.

“I have been a member of this committee for years and we are tired of discussing quality of service,” said MNA Mahesh Kumar, adding that Ufone’s network in Karachi was “extremely poor”.

MNA Sadiq Memon echoed the concerns, saying mobile services had become highly unreliable, particularly in large cities. He warned that the pace of fifth-generation (5G) rollout was too slow and remarked that if implementation continued at the current rate, the technology could become obsolete before nationwide deployment was completed.

Committee Chairman Syed Amin Ul Haque was particularly critical of Ufone, declaring that its service quality had become “the worst”. He warned that the recent merger of Ufone and Telenor could further deteriorate service standards if corrective measures were not taken.

The committee recommended that telecom operators failing to meet Quality of Service (QoS) benchmarks should be issued show-cause notices, fined and, if repeated violations persist, face suspension of their operating licences.

Responding to the criticism, PTA Chairman Hafeez Ur Rehman acknowledged that service quality remained below expectations.

“We are not claiming that quality of service has improved,” he told lawmakers, adding that PTA had shifted from conducting joint quality surveys with telecom operators to carrying out independent district-level assessments.

He expressed confidence that service quality would improve gradually with the rollout of 5G networks.

The PTA chief informed the committee that Pakistan had already launched 5G services at 449 sites across 22 cities and had moved from measuring internet performance through average speeds to median speeds, providing a more realistic assessment of user experience.

Federal Minister for IT and Telecommunication Shaza Fatima Khawaja told lawmakers that broadband usage had expanded rapidly, with 97% of Pakistanis now using broadband internet, while average monthly internet spending stood at Rs285 per user.

She said Pakistan had previously been operating on just 274 MHz of spectrum, while an additional 480 MHz had been auctioned earlier this year, paving the way for wider 5G deployment.

The minister said early passage of the Pakistan Telecommunication (Re-organisation) Amendment Bill would help remove right-of-way bottlenecks and accelerate telecom infrastructure rollout.

Highlighting operational challenges, she said persistent electricity load shedding continued to affect network availability, while increasing data consumption and years of underinvestment had placed significant pressure on telecom infrastructure.

PTA officials told the committee that the regulator was now collecting network data from operators every 24 hours to identify tower outages.

They added that the prime minister had constituted a committee to examine proposals for exempting telecom towers from load shedding.

Separately, the committee also reviewed progress on the Karachi IT Park project, expressing dissatisfaction over delays. Chairman Amin Ul Haque criticised the pace of work, saying that despite five years having passed, little progress had been made beyond paperwork.

Shaza Fatima assured lawmakers that Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) funding had been earmarked, a third-party review was under way, and the contract would be awarded once the evaluation process was completed.