Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd

Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) is the largest telecommunication company in Pakistan. This company provides telephony services to the nation and still holds the status of backbone for country’s telecommunication infrastructure despite arrival of a dozen other telcos including telecom giants like Telenor and China Mobile . The company consists of around 2000 telephone exchanges across country providing largest fixed line network. GSM, CDMA and Internet are other resources of PTCL, making it a gigantic organization. The Government of Pakistan sold 26% shares and control of the company to Etisalat in 2006. The Government of Pakistan retained 62% of the shares while the remaining 12% are held by the general public.

PTCL is also part of the consortium of three major Submarine communication cable networks: SEA-ME-WE 3, SEA-ME-WE 4 and I-ME-WE. In addition to wireline line operations, PTCL also provides fixed line service through its countrywide CDMA based WLL (Wireless Local Loop) network, under the Vfone brand name. In the cellular segment, the second largest cellular provider in Pakistan, Ufone, is also a wholly owned subsidiary of PTCL.

History
From the beginnings of Posts & Telegraph Department in 1947 and establishment of Pakistan Telephone & Telegraph Department in 1962, PTCL has been a major player in telecommunication in Pakistan. Despite having established a network of enormous size, PTCL workings and policies have attracted regular criticism from other smaller operators and the civil society of Pakistan[citation needed].

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 award of licenses for cellular, card-operated pay-phones, paging and, lately, data communication services.

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.

In 1995, Pakistan Telecommunication (Reorganization) Ordinance formed the basis for PTCL monopoly over basic telephony in the country. The provisions of the Ordinance were lent permanence in October 1996 through Pakistan Telecommunication (Reorganization) Act. The same year, Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited was formed and listed on all stock exchanges of Pakistan

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 the 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 telecoms sector is in the offering.

In 2005 Government of Pakistan decided to sell 26 percent of this company to some private corporation. There were three participants in the bet for privatization of PTCL. Etisalat, a Dubai based company was able to get the shares with a large margin in the bet. Government’s plan of privatizing the corporation were not welcomed in all circles; countrywide protests and strikes were help by PTCL workers. They disrupted phone lines of institutions like Punjab University Lahore along with public sector institutions were also blocked. Military had to take over the management of all the exchanges in the country. They arrested many workers and put them behind bars. The contention between Government and employees ended with a 30% increase in the salaries of workers.

Company Profile

PTCL is the largest telecommunications provider in Pakistan. PTCL also continues to be the largest CDMA operator in the country with 0.8 million V-fone customers. The company maintains a leading position in Pakistan as an infrastructure provider to other telecom operators and corporate customers of the country. It has the potential to be an instrumental agent in Pakistan’s economic growth. PTCL has laid an Optical Fibre Access Network in the major metropolitan centres of Pakistan and local loop services have started to be modernized and upgraded from copper to an optical network. On the Long Distance and International infrastructure side, the capacity of two SEA-ME-WE submarine cable is being expanded to meet the increasing demand of International traffic

Subsidiary

PTML Mobile – UfonePak Telecom Mobile Limited
Pak Telecom Mobile Limited (PTML) is a wholly owned subsidiary of PTCL, listed as a public limited company in the year 1998 and provide cellular mobile services in Pakistan under the brand of Ufone. Though the company was listed in 1998, it commenced its commercial operations in January, 2001