The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has revealed that none of the major telecom operators met the standards for 4G coverage and latency in its first-ever Quality of Service (QoS) survey conducted along the Lahore–Rawalpindi and Peshawar–Rawalpindi railway routes. These findings highlight critical mobile connectivity issues for thousands of daily train passengers.
In a bid to enhance mobile service quality during intercity travel, the PTA surveyed two of Pakistan’s busiest railway corridors: Lahore–Rawalpindi and Peshawar–Rawalpindi. The objective was to evaluate and improve mobile voice and data services for users who rely on these networks while in transit.
The PTA’s railway QoS survey revealed that not a single telecom operator achieved the benchmark 90 percent confidence level for 4G signal strength. Zong led with 88.7 percent on the Peshawar–Rawalpindi route, while Jazz topped the Lahore–Rawalpindi route with only 59.9 percent.
For mobile broadband performance, Jazz showed the highest download and upload speeds on both routes. On Peshawar–Rawalpindi, Jazz reached 14.29 Mbps download and 12.97 Mbps upload, while on Lahore–Rawalpindi, it recorded 11.56 Mbps download and 5.89 Mbps upload.
Latency Remains a Challenge Despite Acceptable Speeds
Despite decent speeds, latency remained a major concern. No operator met the PTA’s benchmark of less than 75 milliseconds. Zong had the lowest latency on Peshawar–Rawalpindi at 86 ms, while Jazz recorded the lowest on Lahore–Rawalpindi at 171 ms.
When it came to webpage loading times, most operators were compliant on both routes, except for Zong on Peshawar–Rawalpindi, which took 8.74 seconds.
The PTA also evaluated four voice service KPIs, including Call Setup Success Rate (CSSR), Call Connection Time (CCT), Call Completion Ratio (CCR), and Mean Opinion Score (MOS). None of the operators met the required thresholds. Telenor, in particular, showed low CSSR with 74.19 percent on Peshawar–Rawalpindi and 70.49 percent on Lahore–Rawalpindi.
While the report did not emphasize SMS service compliance, it did share metrics such as Jazz’s SMS success rate of 90.3 percent and delivery time of 3.15 seconds on the Peshawar–Rawalpindi route.
The PTA’s railway QoS survey underlines the need for urgent improvements in 4G network coverage, latency, and voice service quality to ensure better connectivity for Pakistan’s intercity train passengers.