ISLAMABAD: Secretary General Asia-Pacific Telecommunity (APT) Masanori Kondo stressed on enhancing cross-border collaboration in the information and communications technology (ICT) to maximise its benefits for the welfare of the people.
He was addressing the inaugural session of the Workshop on Policy Regulation and Services, organised under the aegis of the South Asian Telecommunication Regulators Council (SATRC-23), the sub-regional platform of the APT.
The three-day workshop, hosted by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), brings together experts and policymakers from across South Asia to explore key matters related to new technologies, regulation and policies in the telecommunications sector.
Kondo highlighted that the benefits of the ICT sector have to reach other sectors, the SATRC countries need to learn from each other’s experiences – but the key member of the Council – India opted to stay away from the Islamabad conference.
He added that the ICT industry was growing and moving rapidly, and sharing of knowledge and knowledge and experience was important.
Supporting competition among the member states in the ICT he added, “Competition needs some environment and growth too needs an environment – competition is good for the overall growth of businesses, technological advancement as well as the consumers - APT provides platforms for dialogue and cooperation.”
Later talking to the media, he said the APT was not a policy making or implementing agency, however, Kondo said the APT would issue recommendations to the members regarding the adoption of international polices as per their local environment.
Syed Ismail Shah, Head of Connectivity and Access Policy for APAC Meta Platforms Inc said that the full opening of 6 GHz band for unlicensed use was good for the country and the region as Wi-Fi was expected to contribute nearly $4.9 trillion to the global economy by 2025, and countries making the full band available for Wi-Fi would see greater socioeconomic benefits.
Shah gave a presentation on “Emerging technologies and the evolving policy, regulation, and connectivity landscape”.
He further said that Wi-Fi sat at the edge of every type of broadband connection – fiber, cable, fixed 5G, satellite, enterprise ethernet Radio spectrum in the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz band was rapidly congesting. 5925-7125 MHz alleviates congestion and provides a path forward for new technology innovation. In particular, gigabit Wi-Fi (Wi-Fi to terminate Fiber) needs the full 6 GHz. New standards need wide channels to manage new use cases - diversity in throughput, latency, density.
He said that opening the full 6 GHz band for Wi-Fi was good spectrum policy and protects satellite connectivity. Considering the importance of satellite connectivity, FSS deployments in the 6 GHz could be impacted by IMT deployments in different regions as they can be in the field of view of the satellite beam. For example, an MSS uplink in the 2.6 GHz band in Region 3 is interfered by IMT usage in Region 1, hence, there is a cross-regional interference that is still pending resolution. Wi-Fi in 6 GHz will better serve remote communities; whereas the potential benefit of 5G in 6 GHz would be limited to marginal additional capacity for dense urban and not serve rural. In Europe, 5G base stations represent 34.5 per cent of the total number of 4G base stations, but most of those 5G base stations are using Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS) in 4G bands and 5G base stations in the 3.4-3.8 GHz band (for which IMT wants 6 GHz as an extension) only represent 6.99 per cent of the total number of 4G base stations. He recommended that Spectrum needed (Not only 5G and so on but WiFi also) while protecting the satellite and other existing services Wi-Fi 6E can be deployed today.
Chairman PTA Muhammad Naveed highlighted the importance of the telecommunications sector in Pakistan and stated that the sector is evolving rapidly. The regulator has a crucial role to play in ensuring that quality services are delivered in a manner that is secure, and beneficial to the citizens.
Federal Secretary Ministry of Information Technology and Telecom (MoIT&T), Navid Ahmed Shaikh emphasized the role of emerging technologies in driving innovation and economic growth in the region.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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