State of Telecom Industry in Pakistan

In the first funding of its type, Universal Service Fund of Pakistan (USF) provided contracts worth Rs. 1.4 Billion in total, for providing Broadband Services in the un-served urban areas of Faisalabad Telecom Region (FTR). PTCL and Wateen Telecom won this round of contracts: PTCL will provide 72,500 broadband connections and Wateen Telecom will provide 16,500 connections. The  Faisalabad telecom region comprises of districts of Faisalabad, Jhang, Sargodha, Toba Tek Singh, Khushab, Bhakkar and Mianwali, excluding the served city of Faisalabad.

Readers of this blog may recall the earlier posts that we did to highlight and appreciate the work by USF and its leadership. Universal Service Fund (USF) is made up of contributions by telecom service providers of Pakistan. In the last decade, Pakistan has made impressive progress in providing voice telephony services crossing 60% tele-density, but broadband proliferation in the country is still very low and there are less than 300,000 broadband connections in the country. Furthermore, almost all these connections are concentrated in around 15 big cities of the country. Universal Service Fund (USF) is working to bridge that gap.

USF has ambitious and comprehensive plans to improve lives through broadband and connectivity. Read more information from the USF press release:

CEO of USF, Parvez Iftikhar, informed that FTR, has 56 towns and cities of various sizes with numerous potential broadband users like, hospitals, distance learning centers of Open University, Banks, NADRA centers/kiosks, Government Offices, Libraries, Courts, Industries and various other institutions, in addition to a population of more than 3 Million that could benefit. He further informed that a major highlight of this project will be the establishment of more than 250 Educational Broadband Centres in all the High-Schools and Colleges in these towns and cities, besides more than 100 Community Broadband Centres will be set up which will provide Broadband to those who cannot afford their own computers. He acknowledged the tremendous cooperation, help and support of the Ministry of IT and PTA, without which this landmark could not be achieved.

CEO USF also informed that bids for the next three similar projects have already been called through Press and Websites for the areas around Multan, Hyderabad and Mansehra. These will be followed by more projects till the whole country is covered. Moreover, bids for three more Projects of Basic Rural Telecom and two of Optic Fiber expansion in Baluchistan are also awaited.