The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) is seriously engaged in enhancing broadband proliferation in the country. To achieve its goals, an open 'dialogue' meeting was organised by PTA last week to discuss broadband proliferation issues.
PTA Chairman Dr Muhammad Yaseen presided over the meeting, which was attended by senior officials from Ministry of Information Technology, Universal Service Fund (USF), ICT R&D, Pakistan Software Export Board, PTA, broadband service providers, cellular mobile operators, vendors, consultants and academia.
The participants unanimously decided that a 'Broadband Stakeholders Group' should be formed to study various the aspects of broadband. PTA should lead this group, and a customer awareness campaign should also launched to highlight the benefits of broadband.
In his opening remarks, Dr Yaseen briefed the participants about the telecom sector and highlighted broadband proliferation issues. During the past few years, he said, though different segments of telecom sector have shown exponential growth, broadband proliferation had been slow. Percentage growth of broadband had been good, but subscriber base is incredibly low, he added. He also highlighted the market potential for broadband in the country and asked the participants to give their suggestions for enhancing its proliferation.
The participants appreciated PTA's initiative in holding the meeting on an issue of prime importance and, while expressing their views, made various recommendations. The issues discussed in the meeting included: facilitation by government and PTA, infrastructure-related problems and difficulties, taxation by the government, developments of contents, creating enabling environment and utilisation of USF for broadband proliferation, etc.
The participants were briefed about the projects undertaken by the USF for broadband. These included laying of optic fibre cable throughout the country and a pilot project started in Faisalabad connecting schools, libraries and dispensaries, etc. Some of the participants suggested that the government should give incentive to ICT industry and play its role in creating enabling environment, taking on board all relevant ministries and departments. They also suggested that focus should be on rural areas, where there is a great need of e-education, e-government, e-health, etc.
It was pointed out that since access is the real impediment for broadband proliferation, wireless technology is the best option for its development. In this regard, the availability of more spectrums was also highlighted. It was suggested that a study should be carried out to assess the impact of current taxation on growth of telecom and ICT sectors. Based on the results of this study, a case may be taken up, accordingly, by Ministry of Information Technology with the relevant ministry for eliminating/reducing the taxes.
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