ISLAMABAD

Members of the National Assembly Standing Committee on IT and Telecom on Tuesday voiced strong concerns over deteriorating mobile services, with lawmakers singling out Ufone for poor network performance, while the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said service quality would improve with the rollout of 5G.

During a meeting chaired by Ameen Ul Haque, committee member Mahesh Kumar said he had repeatedly raised concerns over quality of service during his years on the panel, adding that Ufone’s service in Karachi was “extremely poor.”

Another lawmaker, Sadiq Memon, said mobile services had deteriorated significantly in recent months, adding that call quality remained unsatisfactory even in major cities such as Islamabad and Karachi.

Briefing the committee, PTA Chairman said the regulator now independently conducts district-level Quality of Service (QoS) surveys instead of carrying out joint assessments with telecom operators.

“We are not claiming that the quality of service has improved,” the PTA chairman told lawmakers, adding that network performance was expected to improve gradually following the commercial rollout of 5G.

Federal IT Minister Shaza Fatima Khawaja told the committee that mobile data consumption had increased sharply over the past several years, placing additional pressure on existing telecom infrastructure.

She said the next major milestone for the sector would be the rollout of 5G following the planned spectrum auction, while noting that Pakistan’s telecom infrastructure relied heavily on imported equipment and that investment in the sector had remained below required levels.