PTA to Set Standards for Cellular quality of service

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has compiled a draft to seek industry’s input to standardize quality of service for cellular voice and data services.
PTA is aiming to regulate these standards with the name of “Cellular Mobile Network Quality of Service (QoS) Regulations, 2010”, to ultimately introduce a mechanism for identifying the minimum quality of service standards and associated measurement, reporting and record keeping tasks for mobile companies.
According to the initial draft, it would be
mandatory for all cellular companies to submit QoS compliance report to authority.
It would be necessary for all cellular companies to meet minimum Quality of Service KPIs and benchmarks.
Key Indicators for QoS Standards:

• Network down-time for cellular companies should not exceed 1 percent mark, which is relatively high as compared to global standards.
• Grade of service or (the probability that the end customer can access the mobile services
  when requested while it is offered by display of the network indicator on the mobile Equipment), in any case should be 98 percent or higher.
• Call Connection Time: Should be less than or equal to 5 seconds
• Call Completion Ratio: Should be higher than 98 percent
• Voice Quality: Under PESQ Algorithm (ITU-T P .862) mean opinion score should be greater than 3.
• Accessibility of SMS Service: Greater than 99 percent
• SMS Delivery Time: Less than 8 seconds

Cellular companies would calculate their indicators and will have to report them to authority on monthly basis.
In response, authority will measure the quality of service through data submitted by the companies or surprise drive tests.
Regulation will be in place after industry’s consultation. Last date for submission of input on draft is set as January 7th, 2010.
You can download complete text of draft by clicking here (PDF File – 222 KB)