Pakistan is a populous developing economy (around 160 million people) with exceptional regional and geopolitical importance in the South East Asia region. The telecom market was only recently (in the late 1990s) opened up by dismantling the state monopoly of the Department of Telephone & Telegraph (T&T) over telecommunication services. By 2005, a number of important milestones have been achieved in terms of market liberalisation. Teledensity has increased from a dismally low 2.3% in 1995 to around 10% in 2005 and there is still room for growth. The infrastructure (both wired and wireless) poses a huge challenge in providing communication services to the population. Broadband services are still costly and with limited coverage. However, the local population has adopted a number of interesting (and in some cases, innovative) means that meet some of their requirements despite the existing infrastructural challenges.
For the average consumer, bandwidth options of 512 kbit/s or above are prohibitively expensive and are hence considered as not available. They can subscribe to bandwidths in the range of 64 kbps, 128 kbps or 256 kbps via ISDN (max limit 128 kbps for simple cases), DSL connections (where available), HFC Cablenet services (where available). Costs of these capacities ranges from $200 (128 kbps) to $800 (256 kbps) per month with service turn around times of around two to three weeks.
Enterprise customer typically get their bandwidth from wholeseller ISPs via narrowband or spread spectrum metro RF networks provided by the same ISP or use the incumbent (PTCL) Digital Cross Connect (DXX) network (available in full E1 or subrate - N X 64 kbps configuration) as the transport. The DXX network is mostly delivered to the customer over a pair of copper wires with a Data Termination Unit (DTU). RF networks are preferred over copper networks for reliability and better customer service reasons by the enterprises. Indicative industry pricings are $4,500 to $2,500 (2MB with or without 'precieved values' additions), $1,800 to $1,200 (1 MB) and $1,000 to $800 (512 kbps).
Major challenges that prevent the broad deployment and wide adoption of broadband services in the country iclude a very thin and spotty fiber Infrastructure, prohibitively expensive Internet transit costs charged by the incumbent's current arrangement of international fiber network termination (SMW3), lack of content localization, and lack of local data denters and operator interconnects via public and private IX (internet exchanges) and NAPs (Network Access Points).
The country was connected to the international collaborative network (which was later to be called the 'Internet') via UUCP as early as in 1994 under a United Nations funded project executed by Sustainable Development Networking Project (SDNP).
Internet transit bandwidth is very expensive. A 2 MB connection from any major US or European backbone provider costed $85,000 in 1995 per month only for the transport charges. This has gradually come down in the past eight years to $4,000. PTCL set up 'Pakistan Internet Exchange' and bought wholesale Internet bandwidth in chunks of STM-1 (155 mbps) from Singapore (Singtel), UK (British Telecom) and some smaller chunks from Dubai (Etisalat) and Intelsat (over satellite).
PTCL was established in December 1990 when the state-owned T&T Department was converted into a corporation. PTCL copper reaches out to around 3 to 4 million customers across Pakistan.
DSL services roll-out was kick started by the government by forcing the incumbent PTCL to form partnership with private opructure to offer broadband services (in the form of XDSL) to the residential customers. In October 2003, In December 2001, PTCL invited proposals from interested parties to partner with itself and use its extensive copper plant infrastority">Pakistan Telecommunication Autherators to use its copper infrastructure and offer DSL services to the residential customers. Since copper is already limited to around 3/4 million households in a population of 160 million, even if 100% lines are provided with DSL services, it will not mean much. In December 2001, PTCL invited proposals from interested parties to partner with itself and use its extensive copper plant infrastority"<> the state telecom regulator allowed Internet Service Providers to offer DSL services to their subscribers by partnering with PTCL for use of the copper infrastructure.
Micronet since July 2002, 256 kbps @ $16 (home use / shared) and . See full tariff
Dancom since December 2002. 512 kbps $1,000 / $2,480, CPE: $150, OTC: $200
Habib Rafiq International July 2002
Cybernet since May 2004. Virtually Unlimited Home/SME Access - Tarrif & details at http://www.cyberxtreme.com
World Online - WOL offers DSL services in Karachi in partnership with Micronet. See their tariffs here 1MB @ $2080 per month OTC: $166 CPE: $200 ~ $580
Paknet
Maxcom
PTCL (the incumbent telecommunication provider) launched a mojor initiated in 2002 by the name of Teleplus and started offering ISDN services to normal residential users. The service had been already been previously available with the incumbent but was preceived as an 'enterprise' service requiring a cumbersome application process, high fee etc.
Most ISPs offer ISDN dialup services for Internet access. Rates are time-based and are typically around $0.5 to $1 per hour for 128 kbps (MLPPP) ISDN access. Telephone charges are luckily immaterial under the UIN (Universal Internet Access) facility which bills the consumer for only one local call to the ISP irrespective of the call duration.
Cellular data is fast becoming the most popular means of Internet access in the masses. The cellular population has grown dramatically after the market was libralized and new operators jumped in the market.
Under the deregulation of telecommunication services, the government has issued licenses for basic telephony services to a number of new telecom operators. These 'Local Loop Operators' will mostly follow the wireless route to building their network because laying out their own copper (or even fiber) networks to reach out to most of their market population will take the sense out of their respective business cases. Most of these new Local Loop Operators have selected CDMA as their wireless access technology. Since most modern CDMA solutions come with built in support for mobile data services such as CDMA 1X or CDMA EvDO / EvDV these operators have (or will) offer data services to their fixed or limited mobility subscribers.
WorldCall
DV Com
Telecard
Diallog
Khalid Omer's Blog (Computing Section)
Spider Blog
Broadband Pakistan (Internet Speed Tests, Forums etc)
Spider
Netmag
Pakistan has a population of 160 million with a large portion (around 50%) of young (between 15 years to 50 years) people. A developing economy, Pakistan has a great potential for telecommunication services because of various facts including
# a very low teledensity (4 million fixed lines in a population of 160 million people),
# an economy that has been put back on the track by the past few governments
# its regional and geo-political importance.
Dialup Internet access is offered as a hour-based service. Fixed billing (unlimited monthly access) is just being introducted by some of the ISP. Hourly rates are in the range of 15 to 10 cents per hour (Rs 6 per hour)
Copper infrastructure reaches out to only 30 million subscribers (mostly in major cities).
HFC networks were non-existant and have only recently been laid down by newly-licensed telecom operators in select posh localities of the big three cities (Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad).
Wireless infrastructure is not present for general public or even enterprise customers.
However, the Frequency Allocation Board (now under Pakistan Telecommunication Authority) has recently auctioned frequency bands of 3.5 GHz to pre-qualified bidders which gives rise to hopes that Wireless Local Loop (WLL) and pre-Wimax services can be started in a market where both copper and fiber are in short supply.
Page Last Updated: Oct 21 2:41pm by Mustafa Rana