PTA finds Pace Telecom, Falcon Broadband short of network standards

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has rated Pace Telecom and Broadcasting (Pvt) Ltd in Abbottabad and Falcon Broadband in Vehari below its fixed broadband standards, in a third-quarter survey that found 12 of 28 city-operator entries short of full compliance.

The survey, run by the PTA's Enforcement Division between July and September 2026, covered 23 operators in 21 cities and inspected network operation centres running DSL, copper and fibre-optic networks. It measured seven indicators: bandwidth utilisation, core and access network availability, local and international latency, jitter, and download and upload speeds.

Pace Telecom's Abbottabad network recorded the lowest score in the exercise, 57.14 percent, meeting four of the seven indicators. Its core network availability stood at 99.73 percent against a required 99.9 percent, and access network availability at 97.13 percent against a benchmark of 99 percent. The same operator's Swat operation scored 85.71 percent.

Falcon Broadband's Vehari service exceeded the permitted jitter limit, recording 40.61 milliseconds against a threshold of under 15 milliseconds. The PTA said high jitter affects real-time applications such as video conferencing and online gaming.

Sixteen of the 28 entries met all seven benchmarks. The rest scored 85.71 percent or 57.14 percent. All surveyed operators met the local latency limit of under 40 milliseconds, the 110-millisecond limit for international terrestrial links, and minimum throughput of 4 Mbps download and 2 Mbps upload.

The PTA said some networks were running above the 80 percent bandwidth utilisation ceiling, which it warned can slow speeds during peak traffic hours.

Other operators with individual indicators needing improvement included Net-Cloud Telecom in Dadu, New Millennium Network in Haripur, TES Media and GH Wireless Internet Service in Islamabad, Gerry's Information Technology in Karachi, Khyber Internet Services Provider in Mardan, Wateen WiMax in Quetta and Multinet Pakistan in Rawalpindi. D3 Advertising and Communications in Shaheed Benazirabad and Wavecomm in Usta Muhammad were also listed.

The assessment checks compliance with the Fixed Broadband Quality of Service Regulations, 2022. The PTA asked operators that fell short to increase network capacity, improve availability and reduce jitter.