Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) is the largest telecommunication company in Pakistan. This company provides telephony services to the nation and still holds the status of backbone for country's telecommunication infrastructure despite arrival of a dozen other telcos including telecom giants like Telenor and China Mobile . The company consists of around 2000 telephone exchanges across country providing largest fixed line network. GSM, CDMA and Internet are other resources of PTCL, making it a gigantic organization. The Government of Pakistan sold 26% shares and control of the company to Etisalat in 2006. The Government of Pakistan retained 62% of the shares while the remaining 12% are held by the general public.
PTCL is also part of the consortium of three major Submarine communication cable networks: SEA-ME-WE 3, SEA-ME-WE 4 and I-ME-WE. In addition to wireline line operations, PTCL also provides fixed line service through its countrywide CDMA based WLL (Wireless Local Loop) network, under the Vfone brand name. In the cellular segment, the second largest cellular provider in Pakistan, Ufone, is also a wholly owned subsidiary of PTCL.[1]
History
From the beginnings of Posts & Telegraph Department in 1947 and establishment of Pakistan Telephone & Telegraph Department in 1962, PTCL has been a major player in telecommunication in Pakistan. Despite having established a network of enormous size, PTCL workings and policies have attracted regular criticism from other smaller operators and the civil society of Pakistan[citation needed].
Pakistan Telecommunication Corporation (PTC) took over operations and functions from Pakistan Telephone and Telegraph Department under Pakistan Telecommunication Corporation Act 1991. This coincided with the Government's competitive policy, encouraging private sector participation and resulting in award of licenses for cellular, card-operated pay-phones, paging and, lately, data communication services.
Pursuing a progressive policy, the Government in 1991, announced its plans to privatize PTCL, and in 1994 issued six million vouchers exchangeable into 600 million shares of the would-be PTCL in two separate placements. Each had a par value of Rs. 10 per share. These vouchers were converted into PTCL shares in mid-1996.
In 1995, Pakistan Telecommunication (Reorganization) Ordinance formed the basis for PTCL monopoly over basic telephony in the country. The provisions of the Ordinance were lent permanence in October 1996 through Pakistan Telecommunication (Reorganization) Act. The same year, Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited was formed and listed on all stock exchanges of Pakistan
PTCL launched its mobile and data services subsidiaries in 2001 by the name of Ufone and PakNet respectively. None of the brands made it to the top slots in the respective competitions. Lately, however, Ufone had increased its market share in the cellular sector. The PakNet brand has effectively dissolved over the period of time. Recent DSL services launched by PTCL reflects this by the introduction of a new brand name and operation of the service being directly supervised by PTCL.
As telecommunication monopolies head towards an imminent end, services and infrastructure providers are set to face even bigger challenges. The post-monopoly era came with Pakistan’s Liberalization in Telecommunication in January 2003. On the Government level, a comprehensive liberalization policy for telecom sector is in the offering.
Last Year, in middle of 2005 Government of Pakistan had decided to sell at least 26 percent of this company to some private agency. There were three participants in the bet for privatization of PTCL. Etisalat, a Dubai based company was able to get the shares with a large margin in the bet.
Last year when Government was going to privatize the company there was country wide protest and strike by PTCL workers. They even disrupted Phone lines of some big Government institutions like Punjab University Lahore and many lines of public sector were also blocked. Military had to take over the management of all the Exchanges in the country. They arrested many workers and put them behind bars. The contention between Government and employees ended with a 30% increase in the salaries of workers.
There have been various changes in the company due to privatization. Such examples include the VSS (Voluntary Separation Scheme for its employees), ERP (SAP based), restructuring, B& CC (Billing and Customer Care Software) etc. Another seemingly minor change was change of brand identity (logo) that will present PTCL's new face after privatization, with greater focus on customer satisfaction and bringing about of new advancements in telecom for Pakistani consumers.
Company Profile
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PTCL is the largest telecommunications provider in Pakistan. PTCL also continues to be the largest CDMA operator in the country with 0.8 million V-fone customers. The company maintains a leading position in Pakistan as an infrastructure provider to other telecom operators and corporate customers of the country. It has the potential to be an instrumental agent in Pakistan’s economic growth. PTCL has laid an Optical Fibre Access Network in the major metropolitan centres of Pakistan and local loop services have started to be modernized and upgraded from copper to an optical network. On the Long Distance and International infrastructure side, the capacity of two SEA-ME-WE submarine cable is being expanded to meet the increasing demand of International traffic.
PTCL Smart TV
Launched for the first time in Pakistan using the flexible Internet Protocol (IP) technology, PTCL’s Smart TV is service which allows customer to be more interactive and more in control with their TV service as compared to conventional TV broadcast or cable TV. Smart TV delivers television programs to households via broadband connection and requires a subscription, a set-top box, and offers key advantages over existing cable TV. Main features of PTCL’s Smart TV are:
- Playback / Rewind live TV channels at any time
- Parental Lock facility on any channel
- Search and select favorite programs by using ‘Electronic Program Guide’. Viewers have full control over functionality such as rewind, fast-forward, pause, and so on.
- Watch DVD quality movies on demand from our library of over 500 titles.
- Watch 100 plus digital quality TV channels.
Currently this service is available in 15 major cities: Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Peshawar, Sialkot, Multan, Sargodha, Jhelum, Wah Cantt, Taxila, Hyderabad and Abbotabad.
Historical background
| | This article is in a list format that may be better presented using prose. You can help by converting this article to prose, if appropriate. Editing help is available. (March 2009) |
- 1947 Posts & Telegraph Dept established
- 1961 Pakistan Telegraph & Telephone Deptt.
- 1990-91 Pakistan Telecom Corporation
- 1995 About 5% of PTC assets transferred to PTA, FAB & NTC.
- 1996 PTCL Formed listed on all Stock Exchanges of Pakistan.
- 1998 Mobile(Ufone)& Internet(PakNet)subsidiaries established.
- 2000 Telecom Policy Finalized
- 2003 Telecom Deregulation Policy Announced
- 2006 Etisalat Takes Over PTCL's management
See also
- List of dialling codes of Pakistan
- Etisalat
- Telephone numbers in Pakistan
- Ufone - Wholly owned cellular subsidiary of PTCL
External links
References
| Founded | 1947 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Islamabad
 Pakistan |
| Industry | Telecommunication |
| Website | www.ptcl.com.pk |
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