Pakistan goes 3G, 4G!

By
Shahzada Anees Waqar
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12
176
  • PTA raises $1.182b from spectrum auction
  • Mobilink, Zong, Telenor and Ufone all win 3G licences but Zong sole winner of 4G spectrum

Pakistan raised $903 million in its first auction for 3G mobile phone networks on Wednesday, as well as $210 million for the more advanced 4G spectrum, with four foreign-owned companies emerging as winners from the long-anticipated bidding process.

The four winners of the 3G auction were Russian-owned Mobilink, Chinese-controlled Zong, Norway’s Telenor, and Ufone – a company jointly owned by the Pakistan government and the United Arab Emirates’ Etisalat.

As for the 4G spectrum, the sole winner was Zong, according to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).

Warid Telecom Pakistan, another company operating in Pakistan, did not make any bids.

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) Chairman Ismail Shah announced the results to reporters after the auction, which lasted all day.

The total opening price of the four lots of 3G licenses was $885 million while there was an increase of $5.9 million in Lot D and $11.92 million in Lot A at the end of the three round auction.

At the end of the auction’s first round there was no increase in the bid price whereas there was an increase of $5.9 million in the bid price of Lot D at the end of the second round. Moreover, an increase of $5.9 million and $5.92 million in the bid price of Lot A had taken place by the end of the third and fourth rounds of the auction process.

PTA Chairman Ismail Shah had earlier said that the first round of the license auction process had concluded with the four competing companies agreeing to the base price. He later said that the bidding companies had three rounds of waiver available at their disposal which had been utilised in the previous three rounds (five – seven).

The companies that would succeed in winning the two 10 MHz licenses in the 3G auction would be awarded the two 10 MHz 4G licences.

Hence the expected total turnover of the auction would stand at $1.322 billion, with the addition of two $210 million 4G licenses added to the already accumulated amount of $902.82 million in the 3G licences auction.

The second and third rounds of the auction for 3G licenses, began with a two per cent incremental bid price.

The introduction of 3G and 4G spectrum in the telecom sector is expected to revolutionise the way subscribers stay connected. 4G provides even faster speeds and ultra-broadband services, putting data-intensive services such as online gaming, high definition mobile TV and video conferencing within the reach of the average consumer.

For consumers, the auction will not immediately translate into the advent of 3G connectivity on their mobile phones. In fact, the timeframe agreed upon between the PTA and mobile operators envisions 3G roll out within six months of the auction.

In the first phase, services will be available in Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta and later on in other cities from each of the four provinces.

The second phase, which will start a year and a half after the auction, envisions the expansion of 3G services to about 80 more cities. In the third phase, which will begin about four years from now, 90 per cent of all tehsil headquarters will have access to 3G services.

 

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12 COMMENTS

  2. I believe everyone including myself is interested to know more about tariff that I suspect will be around PKR 1,500 for 1GB of data for most of the operators. There will be some bundled packages available also that will mean lower cost per GB for resource hungry users. Still most of the people will have to keep their PTCL DSL thing running in parallel. (I've negative feedback about PTCL's service by the way)

    In case you are interested;
    I've been reading about mobile networks in Pakistan recently specially about Mobilink (as that's what I use) Mobilink is a child company of Vimpelcom (A Russian telecom giant). Parent company of Mobilink is 42.95% owned by Telenor group (that was surprising for me).

    Let's wait for LTE as I'll only believe in it the day I'll see ZONG starting to offer the service with at least some happy users. Welcome to 3G Pakistan.

  5. Javed iqbal leghari of kalar wala .

    Ph: +923333586406

    3g 4g ke saholat village me kab ay gi. ham bi to ap logo k network use kr rhy han.sab saholtein shahro me hain.hamry han na koi network sahe kam deta hay.pahlay network ko to wasee kr do.

    Plz hamen bi pori saholat mohya ke jay.

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