SLAMABAD (AFP) - Mobile phone-users in Pakistan will double next year, outstripping fixed-line customers for the first time and heralding a new era of communications in the poverty-stricken nation, telecommunications experts say.
AFP/File Photo
The prediction comes as two new operators are tipped to set up shop in response to a government offer of two new licences for GSM phone services.
GSM, which stands for global system for mobile communications, is considered the most advanced digital cellular technology, and is extremely popular in Europe and Asia. GSM networks are leaders in many typically “digital” services including the texting or Short Message Service (SMS).
“There will be more mobile phones in Pakistan than the fixed-line phones by next year,” Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) director Ghulam Qadir Khan told AFP.
“Mobile phones are going to surpass 4.5 million land-based telephones as the mobile phone subscribers number is expected to rise from 3.8 million to 7.0 million in 2005,” Khan said.
PTA, the state telecoms regulator, believes there is “huge unmet demand” for mobile phones among Pakistan’s 145 million people. One third of the population lives in poverty, earning less than two dollars a day, according to United Nations (news - web sites) figures.
Pakistan now has a fixed-line telephone penetration of 2.7 telephone lines per 100 people. A PTA report published in March predicted that one million mobile phone subscribers could be picked up within six months.
Currently two cellular companies operate analogue mobile phone systems (AMPS) while two others run GSM networks in Pakistan. The total subscriber base was 3.8 million as of February 29, up from 1.4 million in June 2003.
PTA has invited bids from local and foreign companies for the two new GSM licences, with 32 companies in the running.
Currently Mobilink, operating a GSM network, dominates with 2.4 million users, a 60 percent share of the market.
Paktel has 342,220 users on its AMPS network. It is also launching a GSM service in coming months with an installed capacity of two million users.
Its sister company Instaphone, using analogue, has 504,300 users, slightly less than state-owned U-Fone’s 558,430 GSM subscribers.
Pakistan announced the opening of its fixed-line telephone sector to private investors on July 13 last year, after abolishing the monopoly of the state-run Pakistan Telecommunication Co. Ltd. (PTCL).
After deregulation, landline telephone penetration is expected to rise to 5.6 percent or 9.0 million lines by the year 2010. Mobile phone penetration is projected to reach the same level earlier.
Mobilink expects to expand its own subscriber base to 4.0 million by the end of 2004.
The private sector owns more than 80 percent of the market share, and would own even more once expansion plans are fully implemented, said Mobilink’s country director Zouhair A. Khaliq.
“Mobilink alone has invested 520 million dollars till December 2003, and plans another 250 million dollars investment during the current year,” he told AFP.
“The two new (GSM-provider) companies are expected to invest one billion dollars each to compete in the market,” he said, referring to the tender process under way for the new GSM licences.
Thirty-five countries had more mobile-phone subscribers than fixed-line customers by 2000, according to a PTA report published last year.
