Zubair Qureshi Islamabad
Auction of 5G spectrum will be held within next ten months. This was decided in a meeting between Caretaker Federal Minister for Information Technology (IT) & Telecommunication Dr Umar Saif and Chairman Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) Maj Gen (R) HafeezurRehman here on Tuesday.
Matters related to Telecommunication, 5G auction and Spectrum were discussed in detail during the meeting.
Caretaker Federal Minister for IT Dr Umar Saif said that all the hurdles in 5G auction will be removed on priority basis, adding that issues relating taxation, tele-density and Spectrum will be addressed.
He said that effective measures will be taken for the provision of quality services to masses.
He vowed to facilitate people through 5G auction.
It is pertinent to mention here that Pakistan ranks very low in terms of quality of service for cellular users (79 out of 100 globally by the Inclusive Internet Index). One of main reasons for this is the lack of investment in the telecom infrastructure. Our telecom operators only have 274 MHz Spectrum currently to serve the 7th largest number of telecom users in the world.
For comparison, a single telecom operator in Australia (Optus) uses over 345 MHz. Therefore, inorder to afford better services to our citizens, we must ensure immediately improvement in 4G infrastructure and accelerate the rollout of 5G in Pakistan.
The meeting was also attended by Additional Secretary MoITT, Ms. Aisha HumeraMoriani and DG Wireless Muhammad Jahanzeb Rahim.
