By Ijaz Kakakhel

Over 9,000 incidents of diesel and electricity theft, along with prolonged power outages, disrupted Pakistan’s telecom infrastructure in the last 11 months, posing a major challenge to the sector, according to Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) documents available with Wealth Pakistan.

The incidents affected nearly 16 percent of telecom infrastructure nationwide. Sindh recorded the highest number, with 3,938 cases across 31 districts, followed by Punjab with 2,827 incidents across 38 districts, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with 1,668 incidents across 25 districts, and Balochistan with 716 incidents across 26 districts.

According to the telecom regulator, prolonged load-shedding has also been undermining network performance and service continuity by exhausting backup power systems at telecom sites. Policy-level interventions are being pursued to address the power-related challenges facing the industry.

At the PTA’s request, the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication (MoITT) has taken up the issue with power distribution companies nationwide, seeking an uninterrupted power supply for critical telecom infrastructure and priority feeders.

The PTA is also coordinating with the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA), while telecom operators are working with the local distribution companies to establish dedicated feeders and deploy smart transformers to ensure uninterrupted telecom services.

Despite these operational challenges, the Authority highlighted progress in network expansion and technology upgrades. It said the recent spectrum auction increased available spectrum by 480 MHz, representing an expansion of more than 200 percent compared to previous allocations. The regulator expects the additional spectrum to improve network capacity and service quality.

Average 4G download speeds have improved from around 4 Mbps to nearly 20 Mbps, while early 5G deployments can deliver up to 50 Mbps. The telecom operators have also rolled out approximately 1,000 new sites annually, with 20 percent of these installations located in new areas. More than 12,000 telecom sites have been installed or upgraded over the past five years.

The operators have introduced advanced technologies such as VoLTE, VoWiFi, and Massive MIMO, while efforts are underway to increase fiber-to-site connectivity from 20 percent to 35 percent.

The telecom authority has directed all cellular mobile operators to strengthen their monitoring mechanisms to prevent fuel theft at telecom tower sites.

Credit: INP-WealthPk