PTA gives mobile operators to October to fix Islamabad and Rawalpindi signals

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has told mobile operators to fix coverage across Islamabad and Rawalpindi by October, and has said operators that do not improve service quality could face penalties.

The direction covers all sectors of Islamabad and the areas around them, all parts of Rawalpindi, and the two roads where dropped calls are most complained about: the Kashmir Highway and the Islamabad Expressway. Where the gap cannot be closed by tuning existing equipment, operators have been told to install new mobile sites.

What the regulator actually asked for

PTA's instruction has three parts.

First, coverage. Operators must close the places where signal fails inside the twin cities and report what they are doing about it. Second, new sites. The regulator wants new towers put up where there is no other way to reach a dead spot, and it wants that build tied to the 5G spectrum rollout rather than treated as a separate job. Third, verification. PTA teams are scheduled to visit different areas next week to measure performance themselves instead of relying on operator filings.

The regulator has not published a numerical quality threshold with this direction, so the measure will be PTA's own field checks.

Why the twin cities and why now

Islamabad's sector grid and Rawalpindi's older, denser neighbourhoods behave very differently for radio planning, and the two expressways carry heavy commuter traffic where handsets hop between towers at speed. Those are exactly the conditions that produce the call drops and dead data sessions people report.

The 5G link matters for the timing. Operators building out new spectrum have to add sites anyway. PTA is pushing them to use that build to fix existing holes in coverage rather than layering a new network on top of a patchy one.

What you can do about a bad signal

You do not have to wait for October. PTA runs a complaint system for service quality, and a logged complaint with your location, your operator, your number and the time the problem occurs is what feeds the regulator's case against an operator. A complaint tied to a specific address carries more weight than a general one, because PTA can send a team to measure that address.

Keep a note of the dates and times you lose service. If you are on a postpaid plan, that record is also what you use when asking your operator for a credit.

The cost side

Coverage is not the only telecom bill that moves. If you are buying a handset abroad or on the grey market, the PTA registration tax is a separate cost from the phone: work it out on our PTA mobile tax calculator before you buy. Tax on prepaid top-ups is worked out on the mobile load tax calculator.