The Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology met to review telecom service shortfalls that affect key roads in Islamabad and remote districts. “There are service problems on various roads in Islamabad,” said Senator Humayun Mohmand.
He named Zero Point Margalla Road and Faizabad as locations with a persistent weak signal. The chairperson told the meeting that when citizens file complaints, officials often report that the service is fine despite continued outages.
The committee examined the role of the Universal Service Fund (USF) in extending coverage to distant communities. “The Universal Service Fund looks after service in remote areas,” said the chairperson.
The CEO of the Universal Service Fund said that telecom companies install towers based on population numbers. He added that towers placed far from settlements can still produce poor coverage. The committee was told that Gwadar has only 22 telecom towers, and it asked for immediate details of towers damaged by recent floods.
Members flagged more local gaps. “The Mingora area is not under the Universal Service Fund,” said the Secretary of IT. Committee members reported that “There is no telecom signal in Swat and Kalam.”
The committee had requested a detailed inventory of telecom towers. The CEO of the Universal Service Fund admitted that the full list of destroyed towers has not yet been provided. The panel pressed for the missing report and for a dated restoration timetable.
Lawmakers asked regulators and operators to expose a plan in the public sphere, outlining impacted towers and when they would be fixed. The committee demanded that companies fulfil licence requirements and liaise with the Universal Service Fund to fill coverage gaps on major highways and in urban areas.
The meeting ended on a note that the technical data, together with a clear recovery schedule, was to be reported to the committee within a short days.