So the administration of Model Town Society has officially given a warning to the cellular companies that the society will in turn block their towers and hence will also discontinue the services in case the Telecommunication agencies do not increase the rent of their towers. As per the previous contract of the five mobile operators has been expired and now the time has come to renew the contract.
Furthermore, the Model Town Society’s administration is now starting to take the full advantage of the situation and have now started blackmailing the telecom companies. Firstly, according to the report, the administration has demanded to increase the rent up to 100% of the current amount and failure to do so will result in the towers of all the five telecom companies will be blocked which may result in loss of profits for both sides. Seeing as how the demands were very hard and strong, on insistence the Model Town Society has given some relaxation on the request of telecom operators and have now demanded a 50% increase but after some time, it gave further relaxation and have finally demanded a percentage of 35% increase in the rent which can be seen as something which can benefit both sides in this dispute.
Further more it is believed that all the five mobile phone operators including PTCL, Telenor, Jazz, Ufone, and Zong went to the Court and took a stay order against the decision taken by the Model Town Society’s administration, However, the Model town management committee have no plans of changing there stance in this matter. The mentioned five operators have over 48000 sites all across Pakistan where they have established their towers and If the Model Town Society chooses to increase the rent of towers in Model town Society Lahore then it would also be an obligation on them to increase the rent for other tower sites all across the country which will in itself put a financial burden all of the Telecom operators.
It is believed that the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has also issued a formal notice to the folks at the Model Town Society in which they have clearly mentioned that they have no right to block the towers of the cellular companies. PTA in turn believe that the following decision will affect a huge subscriber’s base all over the country hence it is deemed as unnecessary. Moving back to the other end of the cycle, the administration of Model town are still adamant on not agreeing to the current terms. Which side wins this battle will be seen in the future but either way, either of the two sides will have to put their steps on the brakes or else the major population may in fact suffer.
