3G to bring about $1bn investment in Pakistan
* 3G services to be available in country by year-end n Filtration machines to be installed soon
By Ijaz Kakakhel
ISLAMABAD: The Secretary Cabinet Division, Abdur Rauf Chaudhry on Tuesday said 3G services would hopefully be available to the Pakistani mobile users by the end of 2011 – while it was expected that the policy for auction of 3G services licenses would soon be presented to the government and Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) for discussion and approval.
The Secretary Cabinet Division, speaking at a seminar on 3G services, said that the local manufacturing of 3G handsets is very important and the government would consider the recommendations given by the industry and stakeholders.
Chairman PTA, Dr Mohammed Yaseen said the country would see about $1 billion investment in telecom sector.
“There is a great potential in Pakistan in IT sector and the new technology would bring further revolution in telecom sector,” Yaseen said.
About the improvement in existing mobile operators, Dr Yaseen said the PTA would initiate performance survey of these companies at the end of this month with some changes in last year survey. The sample size would be increased so that accurate information might be obtained. The government also plans to install filtration machines to protect consumers from irrelevant mobile calls.
Addressing the seminar, Chairman PTA Dr Mohammed Yaseen said by the end of this quarter PTA would be able to roll out plans for 3G services once the government approved the policy. The handset manufacturing was a vital segment of mobile Eco System, by the end of 2011, there would be an estimated sales volume of 300 million 3G mobile handset around the globe. Pakistan offered an excellent opportunity for investment in 3G handset manufacturing with availability of skilled manpower and upward growth of mobile market. He said that creation of a favorable climate for high value added, low cost research and development, production and marketing would certainly instigate investment window in the country.
During the seminar Chairman PTA also delivered a comprehensive presentation to highlight the worldwide practices regarding 3G manufacturing. He presented various investment incentives offered in various countries. Chairman also highlighted the present 3G handset market in Pakistan with necessary future roadmap to promote handset manufacturing industry in the country.
Raheel Kamal, Sanjeet Pandit and Hani Yassin of Qualcomm also made presentations highlighting magnitude and importance of 3G Manufacturing in Pakistan. During the seminar speakers of International fame focused on the pre-requisites for handset manufacturing proliferation such as incentives, mutual coordination, infrastructure development and technology research.
Mobile phone has become the biggest platform available today with almost 5 billion wireless subscribers, of which there are more than 1 billion 3G subscribers in the world. The 3G number was expected to grow to 2.8 billion by 2014. With upcoming 3G auction in Pakistan and network rollouts in the near future, the industry would be benefited from the data growth and exciting applications and services on the 3G networks. Various full-featured mobile operating systems such as Android, Windows, Java, Brew MP, etc., continue to drive the proliferation of mass-market Smartphones offering thousands of applications, services and mobile content.
Source: Daily Times
Date:1/12/2011
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