ISLAMABAD: PTA show cause notices telcos poor internet is the message from the telecom regulator to the mobile companies, and it comes after months of complaints from users across Pakistan. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has issued five show cause notices to mobile operators over poor service in the last three months, but it has not collected the fines, because the operators went to court and got stay orders. The chairman told a parliamentary committee that the notices were served, the fines were imposed, and the recovery is now stuck in court.
The news came out of a committee meeting, and the National Assembly Standing Committee IT Telecom November 3 session heard the full story. The committee met at Parliament House in Islamabad, chaired by MNA Syed Amin ul Haq, and it was its 25th meeting. Members told the regulator they were seriously concerned about poor internet quality across Pakistan, including in Karachi and Islamabad, and they said the service had not improved to the required standard despite two years of effort. They also pointed to frequent signal drops during WhatsApp calls, which affect millions of people every day.
The man who gave the figures is the regulator chief, and the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority PTA chairman Hafeez ur Rehman briefed the committee in person. He said five show cause notices went to telecom operators in the three months before the meeting, and he confirmed that recovery of the amounts imposed is pending because the operators obtained court stay orders. A stay order pauses a penalty until a court decides the case, so the fines sit unpaid while the courts look at them. The press release does not name the five operators, and it does not give the size of any fine, so those details remain unconfirmed.
The committee also heard why the service suffers, and long power cuts are a big part of the story. The PTA chairman identified prolonged electricity outages as a major factor behind poor telecom services, and the briefing pointed to power cuts lasting 12 to 16 hours in some areas. When the power goes out, the towers run on backup, and when the backup fails, the signal dies with it. Members also highlighted that services were almost non-existent in certain remote districts, while even big cities face dropped calls and stalled video.
There was better news on the new network, and the 5G rollout Karachi 70 percent 2300 towers figures show real progress. The PTA chairman said that after the 5G spectrum auction, about 2300 towers have been upgraded for 5G, and roughly 70 percent of 5G services in Karachi have been rolled out. Federal Information Technology Minister Shaza Fatima Khawaja told the committee that 5G service was available in 24 cities, and she said data consumption had risen sharply with social media and artificial intelligence use. The number of 5G users is less clear, because Geo News reported her figure as 1.8 million while The Express Tribune reported 18 million, and the difference could not be resolved from the briefing itself.
The same briefing produced some striking usage figures, and the YouTube 96 million users 560 million views Pakistan numbers show just how much the country watches online. The PTA chairman said 96 million Pakistanis use YouTube and watch around 560 million videos on the platform every day, making Pakistan the world leading country in terms of YouTube video viewership. The TikTok 100 million users Pakistan figure is just as big, with around 100 million users and nearly 150 million videos watched and uploaded on the platform daily from the country. The regulator has not published the underlying data, and the committee record was not publicly available, so the figures rest on the chairman word alone.
The meeting covered more than complaints, and the committee also took up the Electronic Transactions Amendment Bill, 2026. The Pakistan Digital Authority briefed members on its National Digital Master Plan, which has been approved by the National Digital Commission and is built on three pillars called Digital Society, Digital Economy and Digital Governance. The PTA has also published draft rules for the internet of things, which would make software firms register with the regulator, with a five year licence of 100000 rupees for service providers and a 10000 rupee registration for platform firms. Comments on the draft close on 20 November.
For ordinary users, the notices are a warning rather than a fix, and the real test is whether the service gets better in the next few months. The operators have been directed to improve their quality of service within three months wherever deficiencies were identified, and the PTA says it has inspected 184 mobile sites from 22 to 28 October alone, taking the total checked to over 900. The chairman also said he had visited 41 districts along with telecom operators to assess service quality and inspect mobile towers. If the notices work, users should see fewer dropped calls and steadier video, but the court stay orders mean the fines themselves may take much longer to settle.
Readers should note two points of care in this story. First, the YouTube viewing figures were the subject of an earlier post in this series, and they are included here only as context from the same committee briefing, not as new findings. Second, the 5G user figures conflict between the two published accounts of the briefing, with Geo News reporting 1.8 million and The Express Tribune reporting 18 million, so neither figure should be treated as settled. The notices, the stay orders and the tower figures come from the National Assembly own press release, and they are the solid core of the story.
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