Posted by: Aamir Attaa on June 17, 2008 at 1:19 PM
Pakistan’s broadband market has been slothful despite the fact that broadband services have been made available since five years. Currently there are a total of approx 131,871 Broadband subscribers, which provide dismal picture when compared with other similar economies.
Cost of service (Tariff) has been the major reason behind this slow growth. However a major development for broadband market is the introduction of DSL services by the incumbent (PTCL) itself. PTCL has started offering its DSL services since June 2007 in various cities e.g Islamabad, Peshawar, Lahore and Karachi. PTCL offered low tariffs for home users with free installation service. This has affected tariffs offered by other DSL operators as they have also lowered DSL tariffs in order to remain competitive. According to PTCL sources, since they started of DSL service, 35,000 subscribers have subscribed to their Broadband. It is believed that such competition will lower the tariff and eventually will flourish the broadband market.
Coverage / Provision of broadband services is another factor as main emphasis of broadband operators have been to cover urban areas specially large cities, leaving a major part of population leaving in small cities, towns and villages forbidden of broadband services.
One can expect that PTCL having the largest data network will soon start offering DSL services in other cities and towns. WiMax Services will play a vital role in proliferation for broadband services to rural areas of the country in near future as the figure show that since introduction of first ever WiMax service
(December 2007) in Pakistan Wateen Telecom has captured 10000 subscribers in a short span of four months.
Apart from above Literacy Rate, Computer Penetration, Broadband Investment, QoS Level, Policy execution including the issues such as (Local Content Development, Countrywide Broadband Awareness Campaign and Provision of low Interest Loans for purchase of Computers) has also affect the development of broadband in the country, however It is expected that steps taken by PTA in collaboration with Industry players will ensure better and economical broadband services in Pakistan. Latest developments like reduction in tariff, steady rise in disposable income per capita, extensive infrastructure rollouts (especially fiber), introduction of triple-play services, rural tele-center project to educate rural population, Deployment of Fiber and WiMax Networks and growing bandwidth demands from businesses will help Broadband proliferation in urban as well as rural areas. It is estimated that there will be 0.5 Million Broadband subscribers in Pakistan by 2010.
Email
No Comments
Posted by: Aamir Attaa on May 18, 2008 at 6:00 AM
With respect to World Telecom Day, in this post i am going to narrate few indicatros, to summarize Telecom sector in Pakistan.
Enormous growth in Telecom sector has enabled Pakistani customers to get equipped with fastest means of communications; and it has turned things into reality which were even beyond imaginations only few years ago.
Key indicators/facts of Pakistan Telecom Sector that I think should be mentioned
1. Mobile Phone reaches more than 90 percent of Pakistani Population
2. Mobile Phone connections in the country hit 85 million mark
3. Tele-density reaches 57.43 percent
4. 2 million cellular customers are added every month
5. 4 Billion text messages are exchanged daily at cheapest possible ratesWorld Telecom Day
6. Internet users through out the country reach 4.5 million mark
7. Late night and Friend and Family calls are made as low as 2.5 Rs per hour
8. GPRS enabled 55 percent Pakistanis to remotely access internet anywhere in Pakistan
9. Broadband internet users have hit one hundred and thirty thousand limit
10. WiMAX internet users reaches 15,000 mark
11. Broadband rates slipped from 60,000 per month for I MB link to only 2,000 per month
12. More than 84,000 directly and more than five hundred thousands indirectly jobs were created through telecom sector
13. IT imports worth 147 million dollars annually
14. Telecom imports reach $ 1.64 billion (July 2007 to March 2008) whichh is almost same when compared to same period, previous year
15. Mobile Phnoes import reach $ 581.7 Million (July 2007 to March 2008) against $ 661.5 Million during the same period last year.
16. In March 2008 only the Mobile Phone imports hit $ 74.4 Million mark, registering a decrease of 23.19 percent when compared to March 2007.
17. More than 10 billion Dollars FDI came in Telecom Sector, with 2 Billion dollars in last year only
18. Telecom Sector shares 3.7 percent of GDP
Telecom Sector also shares some unpleasant things as well, which are
1. Cellular market ruined Local Loop (Land Line) and Wireless Local Loop market
2. Regulator was unable to conduct Quality of Service survey, and waved for cellular companies that have flaws in their services
3. 20 Million illegal and un-identified SIMs circulating in market
4. Increment in SPAM text messaging and phone calls
5. Over charging
6. Low Average Revenue Per User (ARPU)
7. Low ROI (Return on investment) for small to mid sized telecom business
8. CED and GST collection from telecom sector is persistent for last 2 years at Rs. 35 billion, despite of millions of additional telecom users
Email
6 Comments
Posted by: Aamir Attaa on May 17, 2008 at 6:59 AM
One of our fellows, M. Junaid Khan, recently discovered a job’s ad from Wi-Tribe in some newspaper.
Obviously, there is nothing exciting in that, however, the clue he got was of some importance for internet users in Pakistan.
Junaid Khan, predicts that Wi-Tribe is going to launch their WiMAX services very soon in Pakistan. It merits mentioning here that Wi-Tribe is jointly owned by Qatar Telecom, ATTCO group and Clearwire, and they are already operating WiMAX in Jordan. 
Wi-Tribe is one of fourteen LDI license holders in Pakistan, and they had been in a dispute with Telecard, reported here.
LinkDotNet is also intending to launch its WiMAX services in Pakistan, while they are in an agreement with Alcatel-Lucent for WiMAX deployment.
So there are some sign of competition for Wateen Telecom in coming days. Wateen say they have managed to grab 15,000 customers till now, and they hold 9 percent share in broadband market. Un-confirmed sources have reported that Wateen may start its DSL operations as well, to compete and survive in the tightening low priced market.
Email
10 Comments
Loading ...