One pattern to notice about PTI’s government is the priority given to accountability with regards to all assets that people hold. That also includes mobile phones. PTA has been after illegal smartphones for quite some time now and the results are positive. After a recent crackdown, PTA was able to catch around 160,000 phones that were illegally smuggled. Although this led to a decrease in the number of users it also showed how people were using illegal smartphones either because they were cheaper or because they weren’t aware of the situation.
The use of Device Identification Registration and Blocking System (DIRBS) has had a dramatic effect as smartphones were recognized and then identified according to whether they were smuggled or where legitimate phones. According to the latest statistical report by PTA, the number of mobile phone subscribers in the country reached 161.02 million which is around 0.1% low from May’s figure. If we are to compare the figures from previous months, Pakistan added more than 168,000 mobile users in may and nearly 2 million in April which is a drastic increase within the given time frame. There has been an increase in the number of broadband subscribers as well, with the total jumping to 71.24 million in June.
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Going down the barrel, into a little more statistical data and we see that Jazz has had the lion share of users with around 60 million users followed by Telenor and Zong, Ufone being at the bottom of the list with 22.61 million.
PTA has been very vigilant regarding the identification of smuggled phone and has insisted people on buying phones with PTA approved guarantee on it and also to check the IMEI number of the phone by tallying it with the IMEI’s on PTA’s website.
