Suspension of mobile phone service | Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)

Pakistan Press Foundation

Suspension of mobile phone service

By: Jawwad Rizvi

LAHORE: Around 200,000 vehicle users remained disconnected from the tracker companies’ network following suspension of mobile phone services on the eve of Eid, according to data on Thursday.

Official data revealed that two major companies in Pakistan are providing tracker facilities with a share of more than 50 percent users, while the rest were being shared by other companies. Other than domestic vehicles, cargo containers were also halted for 14 hours, as well.

Tahir Malik, CEO of Trafco Logistic, one of the leading tracking company, said that all vehicles of their network went off-air after suspension of mobile phone services in the country.More than 30,000 vehicles are registered with the tracking system of the company, which were disconnected. Average daily calls to the company call centre is 700 calls, while only within four hours the call centres received over 3,000 calls from the tracker service users.

The company technical staff rushed to the nearby areas vehicle users and disabled the trackers to their maximum capacities, which could humanly possible, said Tahir, adding that but it was impossible to disable trackers from all 30,000 vehicles within hours. Interestingly, the mobile phone service providers also suspended the data services along with voice services on the instructions of Interior Minister Rehman Malik, he said

“It was good luck of our company that no car theft or snatching incident was reported during the suspension time,” said Tahir.The tracker companies after sudden suspension of mobile phone services are looking for other opportunities, as well to avoid such uncertain conditions in the future, he added.

A representative of another company said that like every Pakistani it was a surprise for the company staff whose Eid celebrations were spoiled by the interior minister’s decision as staff was called back to office in emergency.

The technical staff of the company spent their Eid holidays in the office, he said. Now other options for such uncertain situation would be considered, he added.Tahir said that a meeting with the vendors was held in which other options were discussed for handling such situations in the future. “We discussed with our vendors provision of alternative auto switching procedures in case of sudden suspension of mobile phone services with some other alternatives such as Vfone, which remained in working condition,” Tahir added.

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