PTCL

Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd., commonly known as PTCL is the national telecommunication company in Pakistan. PTCL provides telephone and internet services nationwide and is the backbone for the country's telecommunication infrastructure. The corporation manages and operates around 2000 telephone exchanges across the country, providing the largest fixed-line network. Data and backbone services such as GSM, HSPA+, CDMA, LTE, broadband internet, IPTV, and wholesale are an increasing part of its business.

Originally a state-owned corporation, the shareholding of PTCL was reduced to 62%, when 26% of shares and control were sold to Etisalat Telecommunications while the remaining 12% to the general public in 2006 under an intensified privatization program under Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. However, the 62% of shares still remain under the management of government-ownership of state-owned corporations of Pakistan.

Leadership
In May 2021, Etisalat by e& appointed Hatem Bamatraf as President and Group CEO of PTCL. Hatem previously served as the CTO of Etisalat.

Posts & Telegraph Department
From the beginning of the Posts & Telegraph Department in 1949 and establishment of Pakistan Telephone & Telegraph Department in 1962, PTCL has been a major player in telecommunication in Pakistan.

Pakistan Telecommunication Corporation
Pakistan Telecommunication Corporation (PTC) took over operations and functions from Pakistan Telephone and Telegraph Department under Pakistan Telecommunication Corporation Act 1991. This coincided with the Government's competitive policy, encouraging private sector participation and resulting in the award of licenses for cellular, card-operated pay-phones, paging and, lately, data communication services.

Privatization Plan
Pursuing a progressive policy, the Government in 1991, announced its plans to privatize PTCL, and in 1994 issued six million vouchers exchangeable into 600 million shares of the would-be PTCL in two separate placements. Each had a par value of Rs. 10 per share. These vouchers were converted into PTCL shares in mid-1996.

Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited
On December 31, 1995, the Pakistan Telecommunication (Reorganization) Act, 1996, was passed, which formally reconstituted the Pakistan Telecommunication Corporation as PTCL. The act facilitated the transfer of the telecommunications business, along with its associated assets, rights, liabilities, and obligations, from the corporation to PTCL. However, certain exclusions were allocated to the National Telecommunication Corporation (NTC), Frequency Allocation Board (FAB), Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), and Pakistan Telecommunication Employees Trust (PTET).

As part of the reorganization process, the Government of Pakistan divested 26 percent of its PTCL shares through an initial public offering (IPO) at a strike price of PKR 30 and was subsequently listed on the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) in 1996.

PTCL launched its mobile and data services subsidiaries in 2001 by the name of Ufone and PakNet respectively. None of the brands made it to the top slots in the respective competitions. Lately, however, Ufone had increased its market share in the cellular sector. The PakNet brand has effectively dissolved over a period of time. Recent DSL services launched by PTCL reflects this by the introduction of a new brand name and operation of the service being directly supervised by PTCL.

As telecommunication monopolies head towards an imminent end, services and infrastructure providers are set to face even bigger challenges. The post-monopoly era came with Pakistan’s Liberalization in Telecommunication in January 2003. On the Government level, a comprehensive liberalization policy for the telecoms sector is in the offering.

In 2005, Government of Pakistan decided to sell 26 percent of the company to some private corporation. There were three participants in the bidding process for the privatization of PTCL. Etisalat, an Abu Dhabi company was able to get the shares with a large margin in the bid. In June 2005, Etisalat won the 26% of PTCL shares along with management control of the then telecom monopoly for US$2.6 billion. As of 2019, Etisalat has held back $800m amount over a property-transfer dispute with the Pakistani government.

The government's plan of privatizing the corporation was not welcomed in all circles; countrywide protests and strikes were held by PTCL workers. They disrupted phone lines of institutions like Punjab University Lahore along with other public sector institutions.

Voice
PTCL provides fixed-line telephone services across Pakistan.

Vfone network shutdown
Wireless voice services used to be provided through PTCL's CDMA2000 network, which was broadcast over the 1900 MHz WLL frequency under the 'Vfone' brand name, however, the network was shut down on 31 August 2016 nationwide to allow the spectrum to be re-farmed for PTCL's 'CharJi' LTE service.

Internet
PTCL offers three different types of fixed-line broadband across 2,000 cities* in Pakistan with plans ranging from 2 Mbit/s to 250 Mbit/s.


 * ADSL2+ (with optional G.992.5 Annex M) - plans from 2 Mbit/s to 20 Mbit/s
 * VDSL2 - plans from 2 Mbit/s to 100 Mbit/s
 * Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) - branded by PTCL as FlashFiber - plans from 20 Mbit/s to 250 Mbit/s

* PTCL's FlashFiber is currently only offered in 70 cities.

Wireless
PTCL also offers TDD-LTE based Wireless Broadband under the 'CharJi' brand name with coverage in over 70 cities. Service is only available through their provided mobile hotspot device.

PTCL announced the termination of CharJi services across several cities in Pakistan effective 30th June 2024. Existing customers are being given an option to migrate to Ufone.

Ufone is a wholly owned subsidiary of PTCL, it also the fourth and the smallest cellular provider in mainland Pakistan. It provides GSM, HSPA+ and LTE services over the 900, 1800 and 2100 MHz bands.

Television
In addition to voice and data services, PTCL also offers digital TV services based on DVB-IPTV under PTCL Smart TV brand name. PTCL users can also stream live TV using the Smart TV smartphone application.

Anti-competitive practices
PTCL has been involved in anti-competitive practices several times in the recent years, particularly in the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi.

In 2006, PTCL terminated Nayatel's E1 link at their colocation facility despite Nayatel fulfilling all the requirements as per their interconnect agreement.

In November 2010, LINKdotNET (part of Mobilink, now Jazz) and Micronet Broadband in a complaint to PTA, accused PTCL of charging excessively high prices for bandwidth to other ISPs, whilst subsidizing its own DSL tariffs.

Again in 2016, PTCL and Bahria Town were both involved in preventing other ISPs from laying fiber infrastructure in, effectively giving PTCL a monopoly for voice, data and TV in Bahria Town. The Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) issued a show-cause notice to Bahria Town for abusing its dominant position. After the case was heard, a fine of 2 million PKR was imposed on Bahria Town and CCP ordered them to allow Nayatel and any other potential entrants to lay their fiber infrastructure, allowing healthy competition in the ISP sector.

On 14th February 2024, Nayatel submitted a complaint with PTA alleging that PTCL was actively blocking Nayatel IP addresses as Nayatel terminated their bandwidth agreement directly with PTCL due to price gouging. Nayatel instead opted to purchase PTCL bandwidth through Telenor Pakistan and Zong CMPak who were authorized by PTA to resell to other licensees, as this was more cost effective for Nayatel. However, PTCL refused to allow Nayatel's traffic to pass through its network since the bandwidth was purchased through a reseller.

Phone number format change
PTCL had started with 10 digit numbers for landline telephones. The first three (in case of smaller cities, 4 or 5) signified the area code (e.g. 042 for Lahore) and the rest (7 for large cities, 6 or 5 for smaller ones) were the subscribers number. Due to the large demand for landlines in Lahore and Karachi, in 2009, PTCL decided to increase the 7-digit subscriber numbers to 8-digits, adding "9" before existing Government numbers and "3" before the others (e.g. the number 042-7878787 before 2009, was changed to 042-37878787).

5G trials
PTCL successfully carried out 5G trials in February 2021 and achieved download speeds up to 1.7 Gbps in their testing environment.

Acquisition of Telenor Pakistan
After Telenor ASA announced in November 2022 that they would leave the Pakistani market, the sale of Telenor Pakistan to PTCL was announced in December 2023. Subject to regulatory approvals, PTCL will acquire a 100% stake in Telenor Pakistan for US$493 million.