Mobile phone services to remain blocked on 23 March: PTA

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has announced to block mobile phone services on the special occasion of Pakistan Resolution Day that will witness military parade in full glory after 7 year of gap. But, this time, the suspension of mobile services is limited to Islamabad only as said by the authority. The announcement has been made during the joint press conference by Telecom operators and government, held in Islamabad recently. Mobile service Ban Explaining the reason behind the suspension of services, Chairman PTA Dr. Imael Shah has said that : “We are just supposed to implement the orders to suspend the services, as sensitive and security issues are involved.” It is important to note that, this will be the first time when the government will suspend mobile services in the current year of 2015. However, in the past, mobile services remained blocked several times on some public holidays as well as religious events to handle law and order situation. By this time, the cellular operators have successfully processed more than 81 million SIMs out of 103 million in total under the National Action Plan made by government and if this process of biometric verification of SIMs successfully comes to end, it can be said that the cases to suspend mobile services in the country will be minimized to a good extent