ISLAMABAD ( ABRAR MUSTAFA )
It is recently revealed that Zong-PTA duel may lead President-to-President involvement from China and Pakistan. Zong, who has filed a legal claim against Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) of $ US 40 million against the damage due to flawed spectrum provided to it, now going to request Chinese President -Mr. Xi Jinping to take notice of the situation and approach his Pakistani counterpart in the wake of seriousness of the issue.
If Chinese President get involved in the matter to resolve it with Mr. Memnoon Hussain this would meant that Pakistan Telecommunication Authority is no more a dummy body of incapable and inefficient officials that could not able to address the issue in their jurisdiction. Moreover it will further place a question mark on the policies of our Government towards the foreign investment and the implementation of those policies by the concerned national bodies.
Apart from this it is also to be noted that such step by Zong reflects that although it has mentioned or more accurately admitted PTA’s efforts of damage control in the legal notice, Zong has sent through his legal counsel, but pathetically found it inefficient and ineffective, no doubt. Because this move to get P2P approach in action reflects that very clearly.
It is also to mention here that PTA and Frequency Allocation Board (FAB) both considered responsible for on the first place for auctioning a defective frequency spectrum, by Zong. Further Zong when approach the formers on experiencing defect and interference, ironically by PTCL, filed a complaint accordingly. In return on the other hand Zong was only furnished with the assurances and ineffective efforts to meet the problem. Legal notice by Zong is derived by these irresponsible attitudes and inefficiencies of PTCL and PTA respectively.
Now it is to be seen what remedy and by whom Zong is provided, either by the concerned national Telecommunication regularity authorities or it has to be done on the Presidential level by Mr. Xi Jinping and Mr. Memnoon Hussain.
CMPak, that operates in Pakistan with the brand name of Zong, has sent a legal notice to Pakistan Telecommunication Authority for auctioning spectrum that is noisy and corrupted due to in-band interference caused by widespread usage of DECT 6.0 devices.
Zong, in a notice sent through its counsel, said that PTA, in collaboration with Frequency Allocation Board ( FAB) put the defective band up for auction despite the fact that interference in the band was there since before the auction and is still in place despite PTA’s various damage control action
Moreover, DECT 6.0 devices — that are imported from abroad — operate in the same 1920-1930MHz — create interference in Zong’s spectrum.
Notice said that PTA and FAB didn’t remove such interference from the band and sold a spectrum that wasn’t suitable for purpose of offering next-gen services.
Legal Notice, a copy of which is exclusively available with ProPakistani, said that sale of this defective band breach the warranties that came with spectrum purchase.
Legal Notice said that matter had been raised with concerned authorities, i.e. with PTA and FAB, during mid-2014. However, the issue hasn’t been addressed at fullest so far. Zong’s Notice accepted that PTA carried noticeable damage-control actions, however, scale of problem is still limitless given the undocumented number of DECT 6.0 cordless phones.
Notice said that with ongoing CAPEX and OPEX, Zong can not wait indefinitely for the spectrum to get cleared, while it paid full spectrum fee in a single go in advance.
Notice said that FAB’s proposal of substitute band allocation for Zong will incur significant additional cost associated with network modification and deployment on the new tentative band.
Legal Notice requested PTA to respond to legal notice with-in 15 days with following demands:
• Zong should be allocated 5MHz of a substitute band in 1950-1955MHz and 2140-2145MHz band and remaining price of 5MHz that Zong has already paid — along with KIBOR plus 3 percent — should be refunded.
• If money isn’t refunded then an equivalent amount of money must be rebated against various fee and dues that Zong will have to pay to PTA in future.
• Zong be given a compensation of US 40 million dollars for
o Loss of revenues during last 12 months
o loss of market share
o incremental costs incurred during this time in network optimization, cost of additional resources deployed to identify, evaluate and combat interference.
Notice said that PTA should settle these claims with-in 15 days, failing to which may result into further action for the redress.