Archive for December 20th, 2007

Falling Quality Of Service in Pakistan Mobile Telecom

Published by Babar Bhatti on December 20, 2007 under Competitive Trends, Consumer Rights, Emerging Markets Telecom, Government Regulations, Networks, Pakistan, mobile phones

Pakistan’s mobile telecom industry has a new reality to contend with: that of falling service quality (see the quality of service results below). If I could draw a graph it would show a rise in excitement, quality and investment in the years from 2002-2006 and from there the graph would fall down because of network congestion, poor quality of service and poor customer service.

This is typical of emerging markets telecom. In the beginning we had new companies coming in with promises and marketing campaigns. They were ready to subsidies costs and were willing to go the extra mile to bring in new customers and to keep them happy. Eventually their investors wanted financial results and they could not afford to keep spending. Look at where we stand now. One has to pay for a customer service call. The ads are misleading. There are hidden charges. Wrong billing is common. Calls get dropped. I can go on and on but you get the point.

However there is still hope. This is the time when companies with good service and solid long-term vision can succeed in keeping customers happy. I hope they don’t take Pakistani consumers for granted.

Here are the service quality results (source: PTA site). Deterioration of quality is evident.

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