PTA Begins Inspections of Telecom Tower Power Backup Systems
Teams from nine zonal offices are visiting urban and rural sites to check batteries, generators and solar systems during outages.
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has started physical checks of power backup systems at telecom towers across the country, according to announcements carried by TechJuice and UrduPoint on Wednesday.
Teams from nine PTA zonal offices (in Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Quetta, Abbottabad, Peshawar, Multan, Faisalabad and Muzaffarabad) are visiting telecom towers in both urban and rural areas. The inspectors are checking battery banks, diesel generators and solar power systems, with particular attention to places that experience frequent load-shedding.
Local representatives and their nominees are accompanying the inspection teams to help identify locations where mobile signals become weak or services are disrupted during power outages. The regulator said the exercise is meant to find gaps in backup power supply and improve the continuity of mobile services when grid electricity goes off.
PTA Chairman Maj Gen Hafeez Ur Rehman (retired) has directed the zonal offices to keep monitoring telecom towers regularly. His instruction was reported by TechJuice, which first carried the story, and the announcement also appeared on UrduPoint.
Pakistan's mobile users have long complained about dropped calls, slow internet and loss of connectivity during load-shedding. Telecom tower sites depend on battery banks, diesel generators and, increasingly, solar panels to remain operational when the main supply fails, but backup equipment is not always maintained or refuelled in time.
PTA's zonal offices are responsible for enforcing telecom regulations and monitoring network performance in their regions. Mobile operators have expanded tower infrastructure rapidly in recent years, but power outages remain a key obstacle to reliable service.
The PTA has not said how many of the country's telecom towers will be inspected, nor when the first round of checks will be completed. Neither report provided the number of towers already visited or a timeline for the drive.
The inspections follow broader efforts by the regulator to hold mobile operators to quality-of-service standards. Consumers have frequently raised concerns about network reliability during power cuts. PTA has not indicated whether the checks will include all operators or a sample of sites.
The zonal teams are expected to submit findings to PTA headquarters, but the regulator has not announced what action will be taken against operators found with inadequate backup arrangements.
ECP sets ward delimitation for Quetta and Kharian cantonment boards
Quetta moves from Class-II to Class-I and Kharian from Class-III to Class-II, with 10 wards fixed in Quetta and five in Kharian under notifications issued on 29 October.
Information ministry blames Kabul inaction for strained Pakistan-Afghanistan ties
The ministry rejected a Taliban spokesperson's account of the dispute, saying cross-border militancy remains the biggest obstacle to normal relations between the neighbours.
Tarar proposes national council on cyber security and digital literacy
The information minister used the PTA's Cyber Security Awareness Week to float a coordinating body and to call for digital literacy in school curricula.
Health minister says barcode scan will flag fake medicines from November
Mustafa Kamal told the National Assembly that hospitals will also have to buy all vaccines from Pakistan's own funds by 2030, at a cost of about $1.2 billion.