Pakistan Faces Challenges In Adopting 5G Technology, Despite Economic, Connectivity Benefits
The top authority responsible for introducing new spectrums in the country has outlined the hurdles it has encountered in the rollout of the fifth generation ‘5G’ in Pakistan.
According to an annual report issued by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on Monday, it said that to implement new technology, the relevant government authorities need to overcome a number of significant obstacles.
The relevant authorities, it identified, were the Frequency Allocation Board (FAB), and the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunications (MoITT).
The report claims that among the top hurdles in implementing 5G in Pakistan were poor optical fiber cable (OFC) penetration, and lack of feasible use cases, and low tower density.
The effective rollout of 5G services in the nation was further threatened by rising inflation, low average revenue per user (ARPU), high operational costs including gasoline and power prices, and excessive taxation.
Pakistan could soon by 5G regulation leader
On the policy front, however, the PTA said that the country has made significant progress and has leaped to becoming an ‘advanced’ version of fifth-generation regulation (G5).
“I take pride in sharing that Pakistan has leapt to an ‘advanced’ level of fifth generation (G5) regulator in the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) 2022 regulators’ ranking,” said PTA Chairman Maj Gen Amir Azeem Bajwa.
The report added that the ITU recognition of Pakistan/PTA is a testimony to the rapid evolution of Information Communication Technology (ICT) regulations in Pakistan and a move towards collaborative regulations.
“Being at an ‘Advanced’ stage, Pakistan is very close to achieving the ‘Leading’ stage of G5 benchmark. PTA is working with different sector regulators and ministries because innovations have a larger spread across different sectors like banking, education, commerce, health, and agriculture, etc.”
To achieve this level, there are quite a few pointers which require national collaborative action plans, and for this purpose, PTA is closely following up with MoITT, and other stakeholders and public authorities.
In the 2021 benchmarking, Pakistan, among 58 other countries, was ranked as ‘Advanced’ G5 country in terms of its level of readiness for G5 regulations.
Just nine countries had attained the highest ‘Leading’ G5 countries’ status.
PTA, the report said, is already on track to being listed among ‘Leading’ G5 regulators, with continued ITU assistance on the explanation and methodology governing the tracker, and how PTA can improve its ranking.
National collaborative governance was one of the main pillars of the G5 benchmark.
In this context, PTA has launched a cross-sector initiative by approaching relevant ministries, departments, and government institutions. Formal MoUs have been signed with NH&MP and NEPRA.
Moreover, MoUs with the Ministry of Commerce, Pakistan Post, NADRA, NTISB, NHA, and OGRA are in the pipeline.
Benefits of 5G
The 5th Generation (G5) benchmark, the report noted, helps to fast-track collaborative, cross-sector regulation as the best and quickest means to leverage digital transformation for the regulator, the industry, and the economy.
Pakistan has made significant progress towards this end, leaping to an ‘Advanced’ level of G5 regulator.
ITU’s recognition of PTA is testimony to the rapid evolution of ICT regulations in Pakistan and a prospective transition towards collaborative regulations.
Rising spread of 4G
Even as Pakistanis look at other nations in the region take up 5G, the uptake of 4G networks in Pakistan has been on steep rise in recent years, with 49 per cent of mobile devices in use on local networks utilizing 4G as of September 2022. This marks a significant increase from the 32 per cent of devices using 4G in 2019, and shows a clear trend towards increased adoption of faster mobile networks.
Additionally, the use of 3G networks has been in decline, with only 5 per cent of devices in use utilizing 3G as of September 2022, compared to 13 per cent in 2019. At the same time, the usage of 2G network usage has also been decreasing, with 46 per cent of devices in use utilizing 2G in September 2022 as opposed to 56 per cent in 2019.
Despite these obstacles, the PTA, MoITT, and FAB are trying to create laws that will speed up the rollout of 5G.
These laws include the infrastructure sharing framework, spectrum refarming framework, spectrum sharing, national roaming, and ease-of-doing business.
The assessment also stated that 5G is a game-changing technology with the ability to significantly improve socioeconomic conditions in the nation by enabling communities to participate in the sophisticated and data-intensive digital economy.
The PTA and MoITT understand how crucial it is to deploy 5G services in Pakistan on time given that predictions indicate it would draw 3.5 billion customers by 2026.
PTA will appoint a consultant after the government releases complete 5G legislation to establish an appropriate auction design that takes into account investment incentives, rollout models, implementation models, and the creation of various use cases.
The authorities also advocated cooperation between the public and commercial sectors to meet obstacles and take use of 5G technology’s prospects.
