International Roaming of Afghan SIMs Not Allowed in Pakistan: PTA
International Roaming of Afghan SIMs Not Allowed in Pakistan: PTA
International roaming facility for Afghanistan based operators in Pakistan is disabled by default and there’s no roaming service available for any Afghan SIM with-in Pakistan’s borders, said Pakistan Telecommunication Authority.
Mobile phone companies also confirmed ProPakistani that they aren’t offering roaming services to any Afghan operator including Roshan Telecom, Etisalat, MTN Telecom and Afghan Wireless.
Issue was raised when ARY TV showed that Afghan SIMs are being sold in Pakistan in cities including Chaman and that these Afghan SIMs are operating as usual with-in Pakistani borders including Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad.
ARY Claimed that it has proofs of Afghan SIM operating in Pakistan, that’s when PTA came ahead and clarified the situation by refuting the report and claiming that no Afghan SIM can operate in Pakistan.
According to PTA, any Afghan SIM, brought from Afghanistan into Pakistan by any means, will not work/operate inside Pakistan’s territory.
However, the PTA clarified, these Afghan SIMs may work near border areas where there is spillover coverage of Afghan operators with-in Pakistani borders.
Expert say that these spillover GSM signals can not travel beyond an aerial distance of 35 kilometers in ideal conditions and about 8-12 kilometers in usual cases.
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority said that it had approached Afghan Embassy in Islamabad through Foreign Office to resolve this spillover coverage of Afghani operators with-in Pakistani boarder, however, matter hasn’t been resolved yet.
It must be noted that Pakistani operators are allowed to roam in Afghanistan and SIMs of all Pakistani operators, while in roaming, work smoothly in Afghanistan.
Morover any Afghan number (mobile or landline) can make calls from with-in Afghanistan to any Pakistani mobile or landline number just like an international call.
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