The Internet in Pakistan has been available since the early 1990s. Pakistan has about 118.8 million internet users, making it the 8th-largest population of internet users in the world.

Information and communications technology Information and communications technology (ICT) is an extensional term for information technology (IT) that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications (telephone lines and wireless signals) and computers, ...

(ICT) is one of the fastest growing industries in the country. In 2001 just 1.3% of the population used the Internet. By 2006 this figure had grown to 6.5% and in 2012 to 10.0%. As of July 2021; the percentage of internet users in Pakistan is 54%, which translates into approximately 118 million citizens having access to internet.

Status

Internet users The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

:100 Million broadband subscribers as in April 2021, 14th in the world; 19.0% of the population, 20th in the world (2012)."Percentage of Individuals using the Internet 2000-2012"
International Telecommunication Union (Geneva), June 2016, Retrieved 31 May 2016Calculated using penetration rate and population data fro
"Countries and Areas Ranked by Population: 2012"
, Population data, International Programs, U.S. Census Bureau, Retrieved 26 June 2013 Taken from https://www.internetworldstats.com/stats3.htm * Fixed broadband: 2,042,179 subscribers as of November 2019, 28th in the world; 1.7% of the population, 128th in the world (2012). *

Mobile broadband Mobile broadband is the marketing term for Wireless broadband, wireless Internet access via mobile networks. Access to the network can be made through a portable modem, wireless modem, or a Tablet computer, tablet/smartphone (possibly Tetherin ...

: 74,338,910 subscriptions as of November 2019, 10th in the world; 16% of the population, 13th in the world (2012). *

Top level domain A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in ...

.pk .pk is the designated Internet country code top-level domain ( ccTLD) for Pakistan. PKNIC is the only organization endorsed by the Government of Pakistan to undertake the administration of 'pk' domain names. PKNIC is a non-profit making, non-s ...

"Pakistan Country Report"
''The World Factbook'', Central Intelligence Agency, United States, 14 June 2011. * Domains registered under the .pk domain: ~30,000 (2012). *

Internet hosts A network host is a computer or other device connected to a computer network. A host may work as a Server (computing), server offering information resources, services, and applications to users or other hosts on the network. Hosts are assigned at ...

: 365,813 hosts, 57th in the world (2012). *

IPv4 Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) is the fourth version of the Internet Protocol (IP). It is one of the core protocols of standards-based internetworking methods in the Internet and other packet-switched networks. IPv4 was the first version de ...

: 5.2 million addresses allocated, 0.1% of the world total, 27.2 addresses per 1000 people (2012). * International bandwidth: ~78 Tbit/s combined from

PTCL Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd., commonly known as PTCL ( ur, ) is the national telecommunication company in Pakistan.TWA-1 (cable system), TWA (2017)."Internet Facts"
Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan, October 2014. Retrieved 22 November 2014. * Undersea telecommunications cables: Six, SEA-ME-WE 3, SEA-ME-WE 4, IMEWE and

AAE-1 Asia-Africa-Europe 1 (AAE-1) is a 25,000 km submarine communications cable system from South East Asia to Europe across Egypt, connecting Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Myanmar, India, Pakistan, Oman, UAE, Qata ...

operated by

PTCL Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd., commonly known as PTCL ( ur, ) is the national telecommunication company in Pakistan.TWA-1 (cable system), TWA-1 and SEA-ME-WE 5 operated by Transworld Associates (2012). * Operational

ISP An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...

s: ~50 (2012). * ISPs providing

DSL Digital subscriber line (DSL; originally digital subscriber loop) is a family of technologies that are used to transmit digital data over telephone lines. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to mean asymmetric dig ...

services: Ten (2012). * ISPs providing

broadband cable In telecommunications, cable Internet access, shortened to cable Internet, is a form of broadband Internet access which uses the same infrastructure as a cable television. Like digital subscriber line and fiber to the premises services, cable In ...

services: Five (2012). * ISPs providing

Fiber to the Home Fiber to the ''x'' (FTTX; also spelled "fibre") or fiber in the loop is a generic term for any broadband network architecture using optical fiber to provide all or part of the local loop used for last mile telecommunications. As fiber opt ...

(FTTH) services: Nayatel (2002), Transworld Home (2015).

PTCL Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd., commonly known as PTCL ( ur, ) is the national telecommunication company in Pakistan.StormFiber, Fiberlink,

Optix Nvidia OptiX (OptiX Application Acceleration Engine) is a ray tracing API that was first developed around 2009. The computations are offloaded to the GPUs through either the low-level or the high-level API introduced with CUDA. CUDA is only avai ...

, WorldCall and Satcomm * Domestic fiber backbones:

PTCL Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd., commonly known as PTCL ( ur, ) is the national telecommunication company in Pakistan.Wateen Telecom, Wateen,

Mobilink Mobilink ( ur, ) was the trade name of Pakistan Mobile Communications Limited (PMCL), a mobile operator in Pakistan providing a range of prepaid and postpaid voice and data telecommunication services to both individual and corporate subscribers ...

, and Multinet (2012).

History

The first

dial-up Dial-up Internet access is a form of Internet access that uses the facilities of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to establish a connection to an Internet service provider (ISP) by dialing a telephone number on a conventional telepho ...

e-mail Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...

service was introduced by Digicom Pakistan (Pvt) Limited in 1992–93. The also first dialup internet service started in Pakistan in 1994, by Digicom Pakistan, sharing a 128K link established at Pardesi House R.Y.16 2/1 Old Queen Road,

Karachi Karachi (; ur, ; ; ) is the most populous city in Pakistan and 12th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 20 million. It is situated at the southern tip of the country along the Arabian Sea coast. It is the former cap ...

. Engineer Nasser Khan Ghazi, was the first engineer who installed and commissioned the first-ever internet link at Pardesi House Old Queen Road Karachi in 1994 and became the first person in Pakistan to experience online internet browsing. The state-owned

Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd., commonly known as PTCL ( ur, ) is the national telecommunication company in Pakistan.modernization Modernization theory is used to explain the process of modernization within societies. The "classical" theories of modernization of the 1950s and 1960s drew on sociological analyses of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and a partial reading of Max Weber, ...

and creating an exportable software industry. In 2001 Micronet Broadband launched the first

service. By the end of 2001, there were as many as 50

Internet Service Providers An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privatel ...

in the country. Pakistan's getting its submarine

optic fiber An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means to ...

in 2000 also helped the

market flourish like never before. Pakistan had almost 128 ISPs in 2007, with customers concentrated in the areas of

Islamabad Islamabad (; ur, , ) is the capital city of Pakistan. It is the country's ninth-most populous city, with a population of over 1.2 million people, and is federally administered by the Pakistani government as part of the Islamabad Capital T ...

, and

Lahore Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city. ...

. PTCL offers free dial-up Internet service to all its

landline A landline (land line, land-line, main line, home phone, fixed-line, and wireline) is a telephone connection that uses metal wires or optical fiber telephone line for transmission, as distinguished from a mobile cellular network, which uses ...

subscribers. In 2006 NayaTel began to offer Fiber to the User (FTTU) triple-services in the capital city of

. In 2005 Telekom Malaysia acquired 78 per cent equity in Multinet Pakistan, and announced the launch of ‘Project Ittehad.’ The blueprint of the project suggested that the company would lay down 4,500-km of fiber optic cables, which would link 77 cities of the country. The project was estimated to be completed in 14 months and resulted in a highly accessible, fully redundant and resilient DWDM backbone with 20 gigabytes per second operational capacity and 48 cores of dark fiber. Multinet has a 12,000 km long self-healing and scalable optical fiber network covering over 120 cities of Pakistan. Broadband access is available in major cities, wireless broadband Internet has been introduced by the

Wireless local loop Wireless local loop (WLL), is the use of a wireless communications link as the " last mile / first mile" connection for delivering plain old telephone service (POTS) or Internet access (marketed under the term "broadband") to telecommunications c ...

(WLL) networks in many major cities, and Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) networks are being deployed. Most Pakistani companies, educational institutes, and government departments maintain web sites, which has further increased the demand for Internet access.

Language

Most Internet usage in Pakistan is still in English. Many

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

romanized Urdu.

Broadband

Pakistan's Government definition of Broadband is contrary to the definition of Broadband in the industrialized world. For example, Pakistan defines broadband as always on 128 kbit/s, while US FCC defines broadband as 20 Mbit/s. Or a difference in speed of 159 times (15900%). In 2015 Government of Pakistan (GoP) recognised that Telecommunication has become one of the dominant sectors in the economy, contributing to the well-being of society and a major contributor to GDP thus introduced a Telecommunication Policy 2015. The Telecom Policy 2015 aims to facilitate the attainment of an all-embracing national agenda and to transform Pakistan into an economically vibrant, knowledge-based, middle-income country by 2025. Broadband is offered at speeds that range from 1 Mbit/s to 1 Gbit/s in all major cities. The largest broadband providers for both corporate and residential consumers include

PTCL Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd., commonly known as PTCL ( ur, ) is the national telecommunication company in Pakistan.Wateen Wateen Telecom ( ur, ) is a converged communication services provider based in Lahore, Pakistan, and was a sister concern of Warid Telecom. The company was incorporated in 2005 and began its operations in 2007 with the deployment of the largest ...

, Cybernet (StormFiber), Multinet, Optix, Transworld and Nayatel."Telecom Indicators"
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, 3 June 2011. In August 2007, PTCL launched Smart TV, an

IPTV Internet Protocol television (IPTV) is the delivery of television content over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. This is in contrast to delivery through traditional terrestrial, satellite, and cable television formats. Unlike downloaded media, ...

(Internet Protocol Television) service. IPTV along with high-speed broadband internet and voice telephony is available on the subscribers existing telephone lines. PTCL provides

wireless broadband Wireless broadband is telecommunications technology that provides high-speed wireless Internet access or computer networking access over a wide area. The term comprises both fixed and mobile broadband. The term broadband Originally the word "b ...

using the

Evolution-Data Optimized Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO, EVDO, etc.) is a telecommunications standard for the wireless transmission of data through radio signals, typically for broadband Internet access. EV-DO is an evolution of the CDMA2000 (IS-2000) standard which su ...

(EV-DO) Rev. A standard, with speeds of up to 3.1 Mbit/s. PTCL provides its service under the brand name EVO which is available in more than 100 cities. Nayatel is offering multiple value-added services as well other than the basic tagline of voice, video, and data. The VAS includes Surveillance Solutions, IT solutions, Web Hosting, Gaming Solutions,

, Data Security and VOD. StormFiber (powered by Cybernet) and Optix Pakistan have developed good market among consumers by providing FTTH and FTTX services including value added services like digital television, IPTV services. Internet packages varies from 2Mbit/s to 100Mbit/s

Wateen Telecom Wateen Telecom ( ur, ) is a converged communication services provider based in Lahore, Pakistan, and was a sister concern of Warid Telecom. The company was incorporated in 2005 and began its operations in 2007 with the deployment of the largest ...

launched its

WiMAX Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) is a family of wireless broadband communication standards based on the IEEE 802.16 set of standards, which provide physical layer (PHY) and media access control (MAC) options. The WiMAX ...

services in Pakistan in 2007. Connections are available at speeds from 256 kbit/s to 9.8 Mbit/s. PTCL offers Pakistan fastest

connection EVO Wingle at 9.3 Mbit/s. PTA issued the License to Telenor, Zong, Ufone, Jazz to launch 3G and 4G services in form of wireless broadband. In 2016, Wi-tribe signed a contract with Huawei to Launch 4.5G LTE Advanced Internet in Pakistan. This technology Advancement is not only new in Pakistan but in South Asia & Middle East too. The first stage has been completed in Lahore and Karachi, which is providing the most Advanced Generation of Internet speeds .i.e. 4.5G to users. In 2021, the PTA (Pakistan Telecommunication Authority) revoked Wi-tribe's license because of frequent service interruptions. Between 2019 and 2021, major cell sites of Zong,

Jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

and

Telenor Telenor ASA ( or ) is a Norwegian majority state-owned multinational telecommunications company headquartered at Fornebu in Bærum, close to Oslo. It is one of the world's largest mobile telecommunications companies with operations worldwide, ...

were upgraded to support

LTE-A LTE Advanced (LTE+) is a mobile communication standard and a major enhancement of the Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard. It was formally submitted as a candidate 4G to ITU-T in late 2009 as meeting the requirements of the IMT-Advanced standard ...

, allowing the use of carrier aggregation on modern smartphones that support the technology. On 22 August 2019, Pakistan became the first South Asian country to test 5G services. The successful tests were conducted by Pakistani telecom company Zong. The country is reported to hav
5G services launched by December 2022
however experts believe it will take more than 3–4 years for country to fully deploy 5G services in the country. In April 2021, the PTA announced that broadband subscriptions in Pakistan had reached the 100 million users mark.

Right of way draft rules 2018

Major hindrance in providing internet services in Pakistan is acquiring Right of Way from public and private authorities (Owners of Right of Way) Over the last few years, there have been many instances reported to PTA and MoIT&T related to Right-of-Way (RoW) disputes. These have come from telecom operators who cite undue demands from various public bodies (owners of RoW). MoIT&T began a process of consultation with all relevant stakeholders to develop a standard mechanism for addressing the long-standing issue of RoW being faced by telecom operators and has prepared draft RoW rules. The Telecom Authority (PTA) is actively pursuing and participating in finalizing the RoW Rules in the larger interest of the telecom sector.

E-commerce

Pakistan e-commerce industry is worth an estimated US$4 billion. According to the Oxford Dictionary, e-commerce refers to commercial transactions conducted electronically on the internet. Pakistan's first e-commerce company was started in 2001 with the establishment of Beliscity.pk by Abid Beli. Since then the market has grown steadily until 2012, which was an inflection point in the industry. In 2018, Government of Pakistan reformulated the Digital Pakistan Policy: one that takes into account its increasingly transformed role across all sectors of socio-economic development; their accelerated digitization, and transformational modernization into integrated components of a holistic knowledge based economy. With this in mind, Ministry of IT & Telecom (MoIT) has formulated this policy document based on a multi-stakeholder model which includes infrastructure development, digitization including e-Agriculture, e-Health, e-Energy, e-Commerce, e-Justice, ICT Education, IoT, FinTech, Artificial Intelligence & Robotics, Cloud Computing and Big Data There was sudden growth in online business during 2020

COVID-19 pandemic in Pakistan The COVID-19 pandemic in Pakistan is part of the ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 () caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (). The virus was confirmed to have reached Pakistan on 26 February 2020, when two c ...

, majority of business suddenly move to online market. Due to this drastic change

web hosting A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that hosts websites for clients, i.e. it offers the facilities required for them to create and maintain a site and makes it accessible on the World Wide Web. Companies providing web h ...

companies business increases from 2020 to onward.

Presidential Initiative for Artificial Intelligence & Computing (PIAIC)

President of Pakistan Dr. Arif Alvi started a Presidential Initiative for Artificial Intelligence & Computing (PIAIC) the mission of which is to reshape Pakistan by revolutionizing education, research, and business by adopting latest, cutting-edge technologies. Experts are calling this the 4th industrial revolution.

References

External links

Pakistan Telecommunication Coverage Footprint (maps)
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority.
PKNIC
administrator of the .PK domain name space. {{DEFAULTSORT:Internet in Pakistan Telecommunications in Pakistan Information technology in Pakistan