LAHORE High Court Chief Justice Mamoon Rashid Sheikh on Monday directed all cellular companies to come up with a swift solution to a prolonged problem of weak coverage of mobile phone signals within the premises of the court and its vicinity. He warned that the mobile companies failing to resolve the problem of weak signals will be closed down.
Surely, after the clear directions of the Chief Justice of LHC the mobile companies would act swiftly and resolve the issue of weak signals in and around the court premises and this might come as a relief to the litigants and lawyers who have long been complaining of the weak signals there. However, the issue of weak signals is not confined to LHC as there are thousands of densely populated pockets where there are weak or no signals at all. Mobile phone has become a necessity of life both in terms of voice and data connectivity but it has been observed that quality of service of almost all cellular companies is deteriorating with the passage of time. Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) issues quality of service reports about cellular companies on a quarterly basis but these have not helped mitigate woes of the customers of these companies. In the first place, the survey is carried out just in four cities of the entire country which means that these do not present true ground picture. Secondly, the findings have become just a PR exercise and no penal action is taken against the companies responsible for poor service. This state of affairs should not be allowed in a country where the number of cellular subscribers has reached over 164 million, 3G/4G penetration to 74 million and broadband subscribers have touched to 76 million. One way to improve the situation could be implementation of the proposal for infrastructure sharing by mobile companies. We hope the Ministry of IT in close coordination with PTA would find a satisfactory solution of the problem as poor quality means wastage of money and time of the subscribers.
