Telecom investments to reach $2.4 billion by 2020

According to the a report titled Vision 2020 the total telecom investments in Pakistan will reach $2.4 billion by 2020 and telecom sector revenues would cross Rs620 billion by the same year. Furthermore, mobile subscribers are expected to be around 161 million, approximately 89 per cent of the total population.
According to the report prepared by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), owing to the continued trend towards mobile services, fixed line subscribers would more or less 5 million till 2020 while the broadband subscribers are expected to be 19.5 million. The PTA “Vision 2020” document released yesterday, says that, during the next ten years, improved quality of telecom systems and services would become a critical determinant of competitiveness in information and communication technology. The growth and development of communication technology today has led to their wide diffusion and application, thus escalating their economic and social impact across countries.
THE ERA OF ‘CONVERGENCE’:
Realizing the importance of the upcoming era of convergence where both information and communication technologies would be offered through the same platform, PTA is looking to promote the sector through its initiatives. The next ten years would bring in a ubiquitous personalized communication lifestyle where any service can run on any device, on any network and in any location over a Broadband connection. Only 0.47 per cent of our population has broadband subscription. Broadband 2.0 networks will eventually replace the current broadband networks. Moving to these new networks offers the chance to increase efficiency and reduce operating costs in the longer term for network operators and Broadband is a key tool to achieve these remedial actions, the document added.
E-PAKISTAN:
E-Pakistan is a unique concept that has been envisioned for the next ten years. The notion aims to employ the substantial telecommunication infrastructure both in terms of fixed and wireless for resolving the nation’s social issues like literacy and health. These well built communication highways could be utilised to provide health and education to the masses The concept also focuses on knowledge sharing in different domains of ICT for development and facilitates multi stakeholder partnerships and networking among governments, industry, academia and civil society organizations of Pakistan.
A huge wave of local content and applications is to be provided through this infrastructure. The document adds that mobile technology has been primarily focused on the consumer market acting as a substitute for land line technology.
4G NETWORKS:
Now visions of 4G and beyond, including established technologies such as WiMAX are ushering in an age of convergence and convenience. The most prominent example of this convergence is television over telecom networks. Mobile phones are now capable of running sophisticated applications and have become an important platform because of 3G networks.
Mobile banking remains one of the key services at the moment. The present effort by PTA to shape up mobile banking regulations in collaboration with State Bank of Pakistan is an effort to smoothen out regulation of mobile payments. Agriculture as a primary sector of the economy also encompasses huge potential to offer mobile agriculture services to farmers and food production companies. The “Vision 2020” Document further said that the most business models of telecom sector currently still rely upon subscriber line rentals and usage charges.
NEW REVENUE STREAMS:
Increasingly, new revenue streams are appearing in the form of either access (usually to a Web-based service) or carriage charges (usually paid by content provider) or revenue-sharing with the providers of content and application services. New revenue streams are expected to come into play especially for fixed line telecommunication market. Moreover, with the emergence of all-IP Next Generation Networks (NGNs), Internet Protocol Virtual Private Networks (IPVPN) will integrate voice and non-voice communications for enterprises.The year 2020 will witness Pakistan as a country 100 per cent NGN infrastructure-the country’s Internet backbone and unwavering localand international content utilization. The divisions between voice and data would be a thing of the past, and operators will provide a host of services on a converged infrastructure platform.