Islamabad
State Minister for IT and Telecom Anusha Rahman on Sunday said the government was committed to supply the market with the frequency spectrum to ensure that operators could expand their services as per international standards for the benefit of users and digital economy of the country.
She said that her government would continue to work proactively to provide the necessary impetus for the growth of telecom services, across the country, in both urban and rural communities. Anusha was referring to the Advisory Committee meeting at which the auction plan had been announced.
“After discussions, it was agreed to consider auctioning 10 MHz of the 850 MHz band in the first phase,” she said, adding the Advisory Committee had decided to recommend the draft policy directive for the auction within the current financial year, 2015-2016, based on various considerations, including market assessment report, emerging market scenario, analysis by PTA, FAB and MoITT.
It pertinent to mention here that consequent to the globally acclaimed and transparent auction of 2014 and issuance of licenses, 3G/4G mobile broadband services were quickly rolled out by telecom operators which brought Pakistan at par with the advanced countries in terms of mobile broadband technologies.
The demand for data services grew, and in less than two years the broadband subscriber base, which stood at a paltry 3.5 million in 2014, has now crossed 28 million mark, and is still on the rise.
With this rapid growth and escalating demand for mobile broadband services, requirement for more frequency spectrum is foreseen in near future. The Advisory Committee had been constituted as a high level multi stakeholder body to formalise the policy modalities to make the frequency spectrum available through a competitive process.
Previously, after threadbare discussions, it had been agreed that since demand for the spectrum, both in 1800 and 850 MHz bands, which were left unsold in the 2014 auction, did not exist concurrently, therefore it would be prudent to split the auction into two phases.