LAHORE, Dec 7: Rising from slumber, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has finally directed the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) to refrain from launching or announcing any promotion or tariff package without its prior approval.

However, the PTA, which is supposed to regulate the affairs of the telecom sector, has yet to clear whether or not this directive will also be applicable to cellular and other telecom companies.

The PTA felt the need to address the issue after a public outcry over the ‘imposition’ of what PTCL called its ‘Pakistan Package’.

The company introduced this package from Dec 1 under which inter-city calls from (PTCL) landline to landline and V-phone are free up to 5,000 minutes on a per month charge of Rs199 and taxes from a subscriber. Surprisingly, the package was not offered to its over six million subscribers and instead imposed upon them.

Doing a favour to its subscribers, the PTCL, however, informed them that those who were not interested in adopting its Pakistan Package could get it ‘deactivated’ by calling its help-line 1236.

Taking cognisance of the issue, the PTA directed PTCL on Friday not to charge Rs199 from those subscribers, who are unable to opt out of the package and have NWD bill less than Rs200 per month in the corresponding months. The authority also ordered the PTCL to reduce the time period of this package to 60 days.

The authority claims that this decision has been taken to ensure “healthy competition and safeguard consumers’ interests”. It further maintained that PTCL had been directed to submit complete details of such packages before its launch and also to refrain from pre-activating such packages without “customers’ prior consent”.

“The authority also always appreciate innovative packages from telecom operators, however it also has to ensure that the same should not disturb consumers’ interests and fair competition”.

A PTA spokesman in Islamabad, however, did not respond to a questionnaire emailed to him as if the authority would make it mandatory for all service providers to take prior permission from it before launching a promotion or tariff package to their subscribers.

The PTA has also not cleared what penalty or action it will initiate in case its directives are not complied with. Besides, why the authority, being a regulator, did not feel it appropriate to intervene much earlier.