Page 91 - SAMENA Trends - November-December 2022

REGULATORY & POLICY UPDATES SAMENA TRENDS

Oman

The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) held an noting that over 600,000 buildings are covered by fiber services in
annual media meeting to review its achievements of 2022 and 2022. Around 51 per cent of buildings have been covered by fiber
to discuss its upcoming plans. Speaking on the achievements optic services and there are plans to cover 50,000 new buildings
of the year 2022, Omar bin Hamdan al Ismaili, CEO of TRA, said in 2023 with optical fiber networks”, he added. TRA has a target
that 12 regulations were issued this year to raise the quality of to cover 75 per cent of the buildings in the country with an optical
telecommunications services in the country. On the issue of fiber network by 2025. According to TRA, the 5G and optic fiber
disruption in telecom services, Ismaili, said that this is due to services cover about 94 per cent of 880 schools. TRA said that
damages related to undersea cables. “We have to find alternative the most important regulation issued in 2022 was regarding voice
routes for these cables which require huge investment, apart or video communication services via the Internet Protocol. The
from having regulations for the docking of ships.” He added that meeting said that the coverage of postal services in the country
a price report for telecom companies' services will be published has reached 85 per cent and currently there are three international
next week, which has been prepared by an independent body to companies and 20 local companies operating in the country.
achieve transparency, and for companies to look at prices in the TRA said it has dealt with more than 30,000 inquiries through all
Arab region. TRA said that there is a program to close 3G networks platforms available to the beneficiary with a 20-second average
so that service providers can use 3G spectrum capacities for new waiting time at the call center. An amount worth RO40,000 was
technologies such as 4G and 5G. It was revealed that nearly 80 per refunded to beneficiaries, while 314 decisions were issued against
cent of buildings will be covered by fixed high-speed broadband, telecommunications companies. (December 25, 2022) www.omanobserver.om

Pakistan

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has carried out promote a healthy competition among the operators.
independent Quality of Service (QoS) surveys in 09 cities of Punjab (December 1, 2022) pta.gov.pk
and Sindh and 13 motorways/highways of Pakistan. A survey was
also conducted, jointly with Cellular Mobile Operators (CMOs), The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has identified
in 08 cities of Gilgit Baltistan. These surveys were undertaken to and blocked 4,395,566 Subscriber Identity Modules (SIMs) from
measure performance and quality of CMOs services being provided 2020 to 2022 suspected of being involved in gray trafficking
to their customers. The results revealed that CMOs are compliant to safeguard potential loss. Gray traffic is essentially the
with respect to data speeds to a great extent, while network concealment of incoming international telephone calls (traffic),
latency and webpage loading time was found below the threshold. which are terminated on fixed and mobile networks by using illegal
Similarly, some of the Voice KPIs have also been found below the channels and other means for the purpose of avoiding taxes and
licensed threshold in few areas. Necessary instructions have been levies, adding that biometric verification is related to the proper
issued to the operators for taking corrective measures to ensure issuance of SIMs and is not a direct measure to control gray
improvement in service quality up to the KPIs. In accordance with traffic. Furthermore, gray traffic is terminated through mobile
Next Generation Mobile Service (NGMS) licenses and Cellular connections as well as other fixed-line termination channels.
Mobile Network Quality of Service (QoS) Regulations 2021, mobile According to official documents, the PTA analyzes the traffic data
network coverage, QoS KPIs of Voice, SMS and Mobile Broadband of international incoming calls on a regular basis in order to identify
were checked using state-of-the-art automated QoS Monitoring & SIMs suspected of being involved in gray traffic. Upon detection,
Benchmarking Tool. The drive test teams selected survey routes to these SIMs are blocked to safeguard against potential loss. Since
cover main roads, service roads and majority of sectors/colonies 2020-22, a total of 4,395,566 such SIMs have been identified
in surveyed areas. Based upon set KPIs against threshold defined and blocked. Whereas, based upon irregularities observed in the
in the respective licenses and QoS regulations, CMOs have been issuance of a number of gray SIMs, a fine of Rs. 150 million has
ranked between 1st to 5th position in Mobile Network Coverage also been imposed on the respective cellular mobile operators
and Voice Services in surveyed cities and roads/motorways. (CMOs). However, no CMO itself has been identified as using
Similarly, in Mobile Broadband Speed segment, the ranking is with such SIMs for gray traffic termination, as maintained in the
respect to highest data download and upload speed, network documents. Official sources revealed that a significant decline
latency and webpage loading time. The service quality monitoring has been observed in gray traffic since the deployment of the Web
activity is carried out by PTA field teams with the ultimate aim to Management Solution (WMS), which blocks voice calls coming
pursue the operators for provision of better mobile services and to through unauthorized gray channels. Sources revealed that gray

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