Key Takeaways
- Jazz emerged as the best-performing operator, complying with 95% of KPIs.
- Zong topped voice services and mobile network coverage, while Ufone secured third place in most categories.
- Telenor recorded the weakest performance, achieving only 78% compliance.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has released findings from its first-quarter survey of service quality among major mobile operators. The survey evaluated Jazz, Ufone, Telenor and Zong against 216 key performance indicators (KPIs), covering areas such as mobile network coverage, broadband performance, voice quality, and SMS services.
While all operators met a majority of the regulatory benchmarks, none achieved full compliance across all KPIs. Jazz emerged as the best performer, complying with 95% of the KPIs, followed closely by Zong at 93%, Ufone at 89%, and Telenor at 78%. These results indicate that service quality gaps persist despite ongoing network expansion.
City-wise analysis showed that Jazz ranked first in most surveyed locations, including Rawalpindi, Karachi West, Hyderabad, Swabi, and several others. Zong led in cities such as Loralai, Malakwal, Sialkot, and Zhob, while Ufone secured the top position only in Islamabad. Telenor failed to rank first in any of the 18 surveyed cities.
The survey highlighted that Jazz dominated download speeds, securing first position in 13 cities under auto-mode testing and 11 cities in third-party application testing. Zong delivered the best upload performance, ranking first in 12 cities in auto-mode testing and 11 cities in third-party application measurements. Voice quality results favoured Zong, which recorded compliance in 88 out of 90 voice quality indicators.
For SMS performance, Jazz achieved the highest compliance, followed by Zong, Ufone, and Telenor. The survey also noted that Telenor’s data performance in five cities—Swabi, Rawalpindi, Hub, Hyderabad, and Pir Mahal—could not be assessed due to a lack of mandatory measurement capabilities required under the regulator's methodology. Consequently, data results from these locations were excluded from the evaluation.
PTA conducted approximately 43,222 voice call and SMS tests alongside a large number of mobile data measurements during the 75-day exercise. The survey evaluated operators against KPIs covering areas such as network latency, which is a vital metric for mobile broadband performance. While all operators met this KPI, they partially complied with it.
The quarterly survey aims to ensure compliance with internationally aligned QoS standards and identify service deficiencies requiring corrective action. PTA’s overall standings placed Jazz first in SMS services and download throughput, while Zong topped voice services, mobile network coverage, and upload throughput. Ufone secured third place in most service categories, whereas Telenor consistently ranked fourth in mobile broadband performance and third in voice and SMS services.
