STAFF REPORT IBD: The cellular service operators faced approximately Rs 2.6 billion financial loss mainly due to the blockage of phone-related services to their customers during Eid days.

It is to be mentioned here that all the five mobile phone companies, on the governments directives, had blocked their phone-related services on Chand Raat and Eid day had blocked particularly in Karachi, Lahore, Multan and Quetta.

As the population of Karachi, Lahore, Quetta and Multan is around 32 million, the governments decision of blocking the phone services had deprived around 21.9 million subscribers of availing the cell phone services especially SMS.

Under the determined ARPU (Average Revenue Per User Per Month) at around Rs 230, the cellular companies had lost accumulatively Rs 2.6 billion in terms of revenues.

“Of course the mobile phone operators earn around 20 times more revenues during Eid days as compared to any other occasions,” disclosed an official of a cell company.

He admitted that rising militancy is no doubt a serious problem in the country, however, the government should come up with some other effective mechanism to control this menace as cell phone service blockade is not a viable option on our part.

By Web Team

Technology Times Web team handles all matters relevant to website posting and management.