Telecom services poor in Chitral

CHITRAL, 06 June 07. Telecommunication services operating in Chitral, including 'Mobilink', 'VPTCL' are putting up an unsatisfactory performance to the disgust of the consumers. The Mobilink Media network is not available much of the time and even when connected has poor voice quality because of the obsolete voice repeater technology used in Chitral.

 The Wireless CDMA service of PTCL the 'VPTCL' has it's own problems. The rates fed into the phones are not uniform and vary from phone to phone. The charges between VPTCL are Rs 3 in many phone sets as against the advertised rate of 40 paisas. Consumers from upper Chitral have complained that VPTCL up there remains out of service most of the time.

The Norwegian Telecom company 'Telenor' is busy setting up infrastructure in Chitral suburbs and their sources say it could commence it's Mobile  phone service in Chitral town this month. This company has already started it's service in Drosh. This  company which is also sponsoring Shandur Polo tournament this year plans to set up a portable tower at Shandur to provide service on the occasion.

Chitralis are getting a taste of development in technological advancement specially in the communications sector, but poor quality, inadequate backup and absence of monitoring of these services is leaving much to be desired.