By: Hina Mahgul Rind
KARACHI: The cellular companies will take legal action if talks fail with the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) over the ban on night packages, said a cellular operator.
He added that PTA had not taken this decision this week, it was taken a couple of months earlier; it was an old notification but at that time PTA did not take any stringent action.However this time PTA has taken some stringent decisions, along with some other major decisions which will directly hurt the revenues of the cellular companies.
PTA on Tuesday in a statement once again issued a directive to all telecommunication companies to stop late night mobile phone packages, on the grounds of “violating social norms and values” of the country. According to one of the Cellular Mobile Operators official, the late-night packages are asignificant source of revenue for the company. In the current market, as for people using only calling features, there’s a general misconception about SMS and services, whereas stats show that on an average more than 50 percent and above subscribers are SMS savvy.
He added that there are not only youth who are subscribers to these packages but there are families and small businesses which are running their business on these mobile packages. These packages and other value added service (VAS) are the main source of revenues for the companies. There is a stiff competition among the various players and Average revenue per Unit (ARPU) is low and different packages and VAS services are main features and revenue generators for the telcos.
Therefore, a potential consequence of the ban could be an introduction of cheap rate packages around the clock. Cellular company official highlighted that the ban would adversely impact consumers as much as companies themselves because they would have to pay a higher rate for the same service.As the statistics show, over the past few years VAS has become one of the major revenue generating streams for telecos.
