In a major development, government has decided to offer new telecom licenses which will be neutral and licensees will be able to deploy any technology of their choice including 3G, 4G, LTE or any other upcoming technologies. An official source said the decision has been made to address concerns of local telecom operators which had concerns that deployment of 3G technology, was not a wise option, in the presence of 4G, LTE and other emerging technologies. Telecom regulator, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) is preparing information memorandum for the auction of frequency spectrum under the policy directive issued by Ministry of Information Technology (MoIT).
Government also plans to hold investors conferences and international road shows to apprise investors about the telecom potential of investment in the country. Pakistan had initially planned to auction three licenses for 3G service in 2007 but the process got delayed due to the signing of sale purchase agreement of PTCL with the UAE owned Etisalat that had a condition that government would not issue any new licenses for long distance international (LDI) category till March 2012.
