Telecommunications in Pakistan describes the overall environment for the mobile telecommunications, telephone, and Internet markets in

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

Regulatory environment

The Telecommunications Ordinance of 1994 created the

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) ( ur, ) is the telecommunication regulator of Pakistan, responsible for the establishment, operation and maintenance of telecommunication systems and the provision of telecommunication services in ...

(PTA), Pakistan's first independent telecommunications regulator, and the

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

(PTCL), a State ownership, state-owned

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situati ...

. Due to a lack of competition, local

telephone call A telephone call is a connection over a telephone network between the called party and the calling party. First telephone call The first telephone call was made on March 10, 1876, by Alexander Graham Bell. Bell demonstrated his ability to "ta ...

rates were high and international call rates were even higher. During the 1990s, a call to

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

cost $5 per minute (300PkRs per minute), which was not affordable for the majority of the population. In addition,

customer service Customer service is the assistance and advice provided by a company to those people who buy or use its products or services. Each industry requires different levels of customer service, but in the end, the idea of a well-performed service is that ...

was poor; fixing a problem might take an average of 10 to 15 days. Despite this, consumers had to stick with PTCL, as they had no other options. This prompted the government to take a series of actions to improve the service by opening the telecommunications market. This was critical, but required a fine balance because opening the market and preserving PTCL were both important for the government. In July 2003 the government introduced a ''Deregulation Policy for the Telecommunication Sector'', which allowed and encouraged foreign companies to invest in the Pakistani telecommunications market."Telecommunication Laws in Pakistan"
Bilal Sarwari, Pakistan Law website, 24 October 2009 The centerpiece of the deregulation was the establishment of two categories of basic services licenses: Local loop (LL), for fixed line telecommunication within the 14 PTCL regions, and Long-distance and International (LDI), for connectivity between regions.” Two sets of criteria set by the regulatory authorities must be met before an operator is allowed to start operation: one for the issuance of a

license A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...

and another for the maintenance of

service quality Service quality (SQ), in its contemporary conceptualisation, is a comparison of perceived expectations (E) of a service with perceived performance (P), giving rise to the equation SQ=P-E. This conceptualistion of service quality has its origins in t ...

. In 2006, Etisalat International Pakistan, a wholly owned subsidiary of

Emirates Telecommunications Corporation Etisalat by e& is an Emirati-based multinational telecommunications services provider, currently operating in 16 countries across Asia, the Middle East and Africa. It is the 18th largest mobile network operator in the world by number of subscri ...

, purchased a 26% stake in PTCL and assumed management control of the company. In 2008 Pakistan was the world's third-fastest growing telecommunications market. Pakistan's telecom infrastructure is improving dramatically with foreign and domestic investments into fixed-line and mobile networks; fiber systems are being constructed throughout the country to aid in network growth. The major growth in mobile telephony was triggered by two steps taken by Prof. Atta-ur-Rahman FRS when he was Federal Minister of Science & technology. These were to introduce a "Calling Party Pays" (CPP) regime under which no charges are paid by the call receiving party on mobile phone calls. The second was the launching of UFone as a government owned mobile phone company that competitive call rates that led to strong market competition. The impact of these two measures has been the expansion of mobile telephony from 0.3 million mobile phones in 2001, to 160 million mobile phones by 2018. Pakistan's telecommunications infrastructure includes:

Microwave Microwave is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths ranging from about one meter to one millimeter corresponding to frequencies between 300 MHz and 300 GHz respectively. Different sources define different frequency ra ...

radio relay, coaxial cable, fiber-optic cable, cellular, and

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioiso ...

networks. Pakistan is connected to the rest of the world through nine submarine cable systems (SEA-ME-WE-3, SEA-ME-WE-4, SEA-ME-WE-5, I-ME-WE, AAE, TW-1, SRG, PEACE and Africa-1) that provide links to Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe; 3

Intelsat Intelsat S.A. (formerly INTEL-SAT, INTELSAT, Intelsat) is a multinational satellite services provider with corporate headquarters in Luxembourg and administrative headquarters in Tysons Corner, Virginia, United States. Originally formed as I ...

satellite earth stations (1

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

and 2

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by ...

); 3 operational international gateway exchanges (2 at

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 c ...

and 1 at

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 ...

); and microwave radio relay to neighboring countries.

Perception survey

LIRNEasia's Telecommunications Regulatory Environment (TRE) index summarizes stakeholders’ perception of the regulatory and policy environment and provides insight into how conducive the environment is for further development and progress. The most recent survey was conducted in July 2008 in eight Asian countries, including Pakistan. The tool measured seven dimensions: (i) market entry; (ii) access to scarce resources; (iii) interconnection; (iv) tariff regulation; (v) anti-competitive practices; (vi) universal services; and (vii) quality of service; for the fixed, mobile, and broadband sectors. The survey found that in Pakistan the mobile sector was most active, followed by broadband; while the

fixed-line 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 ...

sector remained somewhat static. The parameters that improved compared to the 2006 survey were:

interconnection In telecommunications, interconnection is the physical linking of a carrier's network with equipment or facilities not belonging to that network. The term may refer to a connection between a carrier's facilities and the equipment belonging to ...

, tariff regulation, regulation of anti-competitive practices, and

universal service obligation Universal service is an economic, legal and business term used mostly in regulated industries, referring to the practice of providing a baseline level of services to every resident of a country. An example of this concept is found in the US Tele ...

in the mobile sector; and market entry, interconnection, regulation of anti-competitive practices and universal service obligation in the fixed sector. Market entry received a low score in the mobile sector due to the perception that the cost of a new or renewal mobile license was prohibitive, thus posing a serious barrier to entry. However, this conclusion may have been incorrect, as the license fee, at least in the case of renewal by Mobilink GSM, was paid in installments over a period of three years. Thus, lack of complete information on the part of survey participants may have skewed the results.

Mobile telecommunications

Instaphone and Paktel were the pioneers in mobile communication in Pakistan during the 1990s. They were joined by

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 ...

in 1998 which was owned by Motorola until its sale to ORASCOM. The trio offered AMPS services before switching to GSM in the early 2000s.

Ufone Pak Telecommunication Mobile Limited or Ufone ( ur, ) is a Pakistani GSM cellular service provider. It is the third mobile operator to enter Pakistani market. It started its operations under the brand Ufone, in Islamabad on January 29, 2001. ...

joined the mix in 2001. The sector was highly regulated which led to high call rates and poor service quality. In January 2004 the Ministry of Information Technology issued its ''Mobile Cellular Policy'' with objectives to: # Promote efficient use of radio spectrum; # Increase choice for customers of cellular mobile services at competitive and affordable prices; # Encourage private investment in the cellular mobile sector; # Recognize the rights and obligations of mobile cellular operators; # Provide for fair competition among mobile and fixed line operators; and # Provide an effective and well defined regulatory regime that is consistent with international best practices. The deregulation bore fruit as international companies

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 worldwi ...

(Norway) and

Warid Pakistan Warid ( ar, وريد ur, وارد) was a GSM, HSPA+ and LTE based mobile operator in Pakistan. It was the seventh mobile carrier to enter the Pakistani market. It commenced commercial operations on May 23, 2005 by the Abu Dhabi Group, a busin ...

set up operations in the country in 2005.

Subscriber base

The mobile telecommunications sector is seeing very large year-to-year growth in Pakistan. Approximately 90 percent of Pakistanis live within areas that have cell phone coverage and more than half of all Pakistanis have access to a cell phone."Pakistan Country Report"
''The World Factbook'', Central Intelligence Agency, United States, 14 June 2011 With 194 million mobile subscribers in June 2022, Pakistan has the highest mobile penetration rate in the South Asian region. 3G/4G subscribers stood at 115 million in June 2022. According to the

(PTA),

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 m ...

leads the market with 75.00 million subscribers, followed by

with 49.19 million, Zong with 44.80 million and

with 23.47 million. All telecom companies are working to broaden their networks in the

Azad Jammu and Kashmir Azad Jammu and Kashmir (; ), abbreviated as AJK and colloquially referred to as simply Azad Kashmir, is a region administered by Pakistan as a nominally self-governing entitySee: * * * and constituting the western portion of the larger ...

and Northern Areas, which were largely ignored until recently. Five of the seven Agencies of the tribal areas have mobile coverage.

SMS

Pakistanis collectively sent over 151 billion text messages during the year 2009.

Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, established in 1865. Nokia's main headquarters are in Espoo, Finland, i ...

has cited Pakistan to be producing the third-highest SMS traffic in the world in 2010."Tech Society: Generation Text"
Yasmin Malik, ''The Express Tribune'', 15 November 2011

Fixed-line telephones

Fixed-line subscriptions declined from a peak of 5.2 million in 2005–06 to 3.4 million in 2009–10."Telecom Indicators"
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, (Wednesday, 9 May 2012) When dialing on landlines, calls made within cities are considered local calls and you just dial the local number. Calls to other cities (e.g. ''Karachi'' to ''Lahore'') are considered long-distance calls, e.g., when dialing to ''Lahore'' from ''Karachi'' you have to dial the code for ''Lahore'' then followed by the number of the destination, therefore you dial 042-XXXX-XXXX. For international calls, you dial "00" followed by the country code, e.g., for calls to the UK from Pakistan you dial 00 - 44 - XXXXXX. The country code for Pakistan is 92.

References

External links

Pakistan Telecommunication Coverage Footprint (maps)
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority {{DEFAULTSORT:Communications In Pakistan