State of Telecom Industry in Pakistan

Remeber the free dialup Internet from PTCL which caused an outroar from ISPs? After a few months of complaints and negotiations, there is an agreement which was mediated by PTA. This agreement levels the playing field for ISPs. Consumers get dialup Internet for free by paying for a local call of 20-minute pulse.

A statement by PTA confirms that PTCL has signed revenue sharing agreements with three major Internet Service Providers (ISPs): Link dot Net, Sky Net and Comsats. This is a welcome development as it will be easier for the dialup customers to use the service, eliminating the hassle of dealing with scratch cards and its vendors.

With the signing of this agreement with PTCL, ISPs will now offer internet services at zero tariffs to general public on postpaid mechanism. The users will only be charged local call tariffs for 20-minutes pulse by PTCL revenue for which shall be shared between PTCL and ISPs. It is expected that internet will now proliferate as internet users can use free internet services of any ISP of their choice without the hassle of buying prepaid cards.

Previously, the internet dialup services had unlimited metering, however, on the request of PTCL and ISPs, PTA has agreed to change pulse duration of 131 calls to 20-minutes provided the ISPs shall not charge the users for internet services. This decision by PTA will go a long way in bridging the digital divide across the country. It is hoped that this will also benefit the development of the telecommunication services in general and ICT services in particular. Other ISPs will also sign similar agreement with PTCL.

Recently Daily Times reported a significant increase in shift of PCOs from fixed lines to wireless. The picture below shows a PCO at Karachi airport.

Here are some details and data from the report about this shift.

Major card pay phone companies have shifted their Public Call Office (PCO) business from fixed line telephony to Wireless Local Loop (WLL) owing to its advanced technology and service portability.

This trend has been increasing in the country since the WLL technology was introduced in 2003 and still continues, as the technology has penetrated 70 percent population of the country as per Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA) report.

The PCO’s business has significant share in the overall WLL subscribers’ base of the country because it is easily installed with no process of getting connection from operator’s side.

According to PTA, more than 0.44 million PCOs are operating in the country on WLL networks, which showed 16 percent growth in the year 2007-08. PCO share on fixed line network has declined from 31 percent in 2006-07 to 27 percent in the year 2007-08, whereas the rest of the business has shifted to WLL and Mobile telephony network.

Telecard has the leading share with 0.17 million PCOs across the country, which is about 8 percent higher than previous year. WorldCall has become the second big player by installing more than 24,846 PCOs. The telecom giant has posted impressive growth of 52 percent to provide PCO connections in 2007-08. Pakistan Telecommunication Limited (PTCL) has also set up 14,528 PCOs on its WLL network so far. Great Bear International has installed 1,089 PCOs in the country by the end of outgoing fiscal year 2007-08.

Mobile phone operators have also allowed providing telephony connections for PCO since the deregulation of the sector. Mobilink was the only operator, which has significantly set up its PCO on mobile telephony with more than 61,229 PCOs by June-end 2008.

PCO service is available in all the four provinces of the county which provides telephony services along with employment to million of peoples. Most of the share of PCO is concentrated in Punjab and Sindh, which are lucrative for PCOs business owing to big population. Punjab has a share of more than 53 percent with more than 0.23 million PCOs whereas Sindh has a share of 33 percent having 0.14 million PCOs. NWFP and Balochistan have more than 37,896 and 25,836 PCO’s respectively by the end of June 2008.

WLL companies are expanding the networks rapidly and are installing cell sites all across the country. In the year 2007-08, they have installed over 951 cell sites and its growth reported over 49 percent in the year 2007-08 compare to previous year. 2,897 cities are covered by the service by the same year. The overall WLL subscriber’s base stands at 2.3 million in the country with 1.5 teledensity. There are total 11 WLL operators having license of PTA but only 9 operators are operational in various telecom regions. Majority of them is coming up with 3GHz technology, which will break the digital divide in Pakistan.