PTA and FIA Are Shutting Down Unlicensed ISPs, and Cheap Local Fibre Is the Target
Two raids, two arrests and seized fibre equipment in Gujrat. Why unlicensed ISPs exist, and how to check whether yours is licensed.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority and the Federal Investigation Agency have raided two unlicensed internet operations in Gujrat district and arrested two people. It is part of a nationwide campaign against unlicensed telecom operations, and it will not be the last one.
For most readers the interesting question is not the arrests. It is whether the fibre running into their own house came from somebody with a licence.
What happened in Gujrat
The raids were carried out by PTA's Zonal Office Lahore with the FIA Corporate Crime Circle in Gujrat.
The first was at an operational setup in Habib Plaza, Karianwala, where internet services were being sold over fibre optic and point to point links without a valid PTA licence. One person was arrested. The equipment taken tells you the scale: a MikroTik cloud switch router, three Optical Line Terminals, four GPON ONUs and a Radius server.
That is not a man sharing a connection with two neighbours. Three OLTs and a Radius server is the equipment of a small ISP with subscriber accounts, authentication and billing. Whoever was running it was running a business.
The second raid was at Prime Communication on Main GT Road, Sarai Alamgir, where another person was arrested.
Separately, two illegal ISP networks were unearthed close to the Azad Jammu and Kashmir border, which suggests this is a sweep rather than a local action.
Why unlicensed ISPs exist at all
They exist because there is demand they are meeting and licensed operators are not.
Licensed fibre coverage in Pakistan is thin outside the main cities and uneven inside them. Fibre to the home is laid street by street, so two houses on the same road can have completely different options. Where a licensed operator has not laid anything, somebody with a few hundred thousand rupees of equipment can buy bandwidth wholesale, run cable down a lane and sell connections at half the price.
For the household, that is a working internet connection where there was none. That is the honest version, and it is why these operations have customers who are perfectly happy.
The problems are real too, and they are mostly invisible until something goes wrong.
| If something goes wrong | Licensed operator | Unlicensed operator |
|---|---|---|
| Connection down for days | Complaint to PTA, which the operator must answer | Nobody to complain to |
| Operator disappears | Licence obligations and a registered company | A phone number that stops ringing |
| Advance payment made | Recoverable, on record | Gone |
| Speed nowhere near what was sold | Quality of service standards apply | No standard to hold them to |
| A raid happens | Not applicable | Everyone loses service the same afternoon |
That last row is not hypothetical this week. Every household connected to the Karianwala setup lost its internet when the equipment went into evidence bags, with no notice and no refund.
Signs a connection is not licensed
None of these is proof on its own. Together they are a strong pattern.
- No written contract and no printed bill. Payment in cash or by wallet transfer to a personal number.
- No company name on anything. The service is a phone number and a man who comes when there is a fault.
- A price well below every licensed operator serving the same street, without a promotion attached.
- No office you could actually visit.
- Nobody can tell you a licence number when asked.
How to check your own provider
The check is simple and worth doing before you rely on a connection for work.
- Ask for the PTA licence number in writing. A licensed operator will give it without hesitation, because it is on their paperwork already.
- Check it against PTA's licensee list on pta.gov.pk. PTA publishes who holds what.
- Treat a refusal as an answer. A provider that will not give you a licence number has told you what you needed to know.
- Keep your own equipment and account details so switching later is a change of provider rather than starting from nothing.
If you find yourself needing an alternative, our comparison of the best internet providers in Pakistan covers the licensed options, and PTA's district level broadband licensing explains the framework being expanded to fill exactly these gaps.
What the enforcement is actually about
It is easy to read this as a regulator being obstructive about a service people want. There is more to it.
An unlicensed network sits outside every obligation a licensed one carries: lawful interception requirements, quality of service standards, consumer complaint handling, spectrum discipline and data handling rules. Some of those obligations are about protecting subscribers and some are about state control of communications, and reasonable people weigh those differently.
What is not in dispute is that an unlicensed operator owes its customers nothing enforceable. If your connection dies, there is no PTA complaint to file, because PTA has no relationship with a company that does not exist on its register.
The wider context is a market being reshaped fast: Starlink working through its licensing, PTCL changing hands and district broadband licences being issued. Whether that fills the coverage gaps quickly enough to make unlicensed operators pointless is the real question, and enforcement alone will not answer it.
If your provider gets raided
You have not committed an offence by being a customer. The enforcement targets the operator.
Practically, expect the connection to stop without warning and any advance payment to be gone. Do not wait for it to come back. Start looking for a licensed alternative the same day, and if you work from home, having a mobile data fallback ready is the difference between a bad afternoon and a lost week. Our guides to Jazz and Zong monthly internet packages cover the stopgap options.
Questions readers are asking
What happened in the Gujrat raids?
PTA's Lahore zonal office and the FIA Corporate Crime Circle raided two unlicensed internet operations, one at Habib Plaza in Karianwala and one at Prime Communication on Main GT Road, Sarai Alamgir. Two people were arrested and fibre equipment was seized.
Is it illegal to be a customer of an unlicensed ISP?
The enforcement action targets the operator, not the subscriber. The practical risk to you is losing the connection without notice and losing any advance payment.
How do I know if my internet provider is licensed?
Ask for the PTA licence number in writing and check it against the licensee list on pta.gov.pk. A provider unwilling to supply one has answered the question.
Why is unlicensed internet so much cheaper?
Because the operator carries none of the costs a licence brings: licence fees, quality of service obligations, complaint handling, and compliance requirements. The saving is real and so is the absence of anything to fall back on.
What was the seized equipment for?
Three Optical Line Terminals, four GPON ONUs, a switch router and a Radius server is the equipment of a functioning small ISP, capable of authenticating and billing subscribers rather than merely sharing one connection.
Will licensed fibre reach my area?
That depends on district broadband licensing and operator investment rather than on enforcement. Our piece on district broadband licences covers the mechanism intended to close those gaps.
About the author
Author
Shahid joined us in 2024 as an author. He is a senior contributor to Pakistan's leading technology websites. He writes detailed articles, mostly covering his expertise in the latest tech, mobiles, apps, gadgets, and step-by-step guides. His ideology is to help people understand the latest trends and explain complex methods through very easy-to-understand guides.
