Chairman of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) Dr Mohammed Yaseen on Monday said that Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani had directed the ministry of information technology for the formulation of a national broadband plan and the PTA was working over it with feedback from stakeholders and operators.
He was addressing the participants of a broadband road show launching ceremony here at a local hotel. The excellence of the modern broadband experience amazed the visitors who had gathered at the launch of 2011 broadband forum of Huawei technologies. Dr Yaseen inaugurated the road show while vice president of Huawei, Middle East region, Leo Xu, and other officials were also present. Different products of Huawei, including 4G modules, 3G mobile phones, 4G tablets, iphones, ipods, smart phones, and small body laptops were on display with Huawei technicians briefing the visitors on various aspects of their products.
On the occasion, the Huawei officials gave presentation to the visitors on the company’s latest modules, fitted in a state-of-the-art van, a part of the road show.
Addressing the audience, Dr Yaseen asked the stakeholders to come up with their input to the PTA for devising the national broadband plan.
“Broadband is now a basic need of every citizen – a universal service and not a value-added service. The factor deriving this change is personal experience. There is a lot of talk about 3G and 4G (LT) technologies but only those understand the excellence of these modern technologies who experience it on their electronic gadgets. I am amazed to be here at the show and the presentations were excellent,” said Dr Yaseen while addressing the audience at Huawei seminar.
“Though 10 million smart phones are connected to the internet in Pakistan today, but imagine the huge revolution if all these smart phones are connect top 3G broadband,” he added.
Calling for an immediate jump into the 3G spectrum, Dr Yaseen said Pakistani IT industry was ripe for 3G spectrum in year 2006 but due to resistance by stakeholders, this revolution was delayed. “Today, we are adding around 2.5 million subscriptions every month. But I am not satisfied. If we have to get 10 million subscriptions every month, we need to jump into 3G broadband experience,” he added.
On the occasion, Leo Xu announced that Huawei would be embarking on a one-year road show across the region to demonstrate its capabilities in providing advanced end-to-end solutions for mobile and fixed broadband services. The road show opened for a week, as a dedicated team of Huawei executives, experts and technical support staff come together to host an unforgettable broadband experience to key stakeholders and partners in the country.
Broadband is widely regarded as a key indicator of national competitiveness and economic development. According to estimates, a 10 per cent increase in broadband penetration translates into 1.3 per cent GDP growth. With an ongoing commitment to enriching people’s life and enhancing broadband development, Huawei has invested considerable resources and works closely with its partners to bring the most cost-effective, cutting-edge products and solutions to people in Pakistan. The live on-site demonstrations will enable customers to experience new Huawei innovations for wireless including HSPA+, LTE FDD&TDD, Wimax and SingleRAN technologies. As the number of mobile broadband users in particular continues to climb in the country, Huawei believes that subscribers will increasingly look for low tariffs with unlimited high-speed access while operators will require network capabilities that allow them to accommodate the expansion pressures of mobile broadband.
During the road show, Huawei presented case studies of how it’s Single Backbone, SingleFAN & Single Metro solutions can be optimized to address the needs of operators across the region as traffic is increasingly dominated by services such as IPTV, HDTV and teleconferencing.
“Huawei’s Single Strategy approach can help operators improve the capability of service integration, value-chain controlling and profitability. As we work together with our partners to monitor and maintain these networks, we look forward to sharing the benefits of these new technologies with consumers hungry for higher broadband speeds and more relevant value-added services,” added Leo.