Telecom services: over 10.34 million 3G users added to networks till February

Telecom operators have succeeded in adding over 10.34 million 3G users to their networks till February 2015 as compared to 9.07 million by January, showing a reasonable growth in modern mobile broadband services with each passing month. Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has revealed that all four 3G operators added some 1.27 million users from January 15-February 15, 2015. The number of 4G (Zong) users jumped from 5,023 subscribers to 7,261 subscribers during this period.
According to PTA, the number of Zong, Mobilink, Ufone and Telenor 3G users reached 2.1 million, 2.6 million, 2.4 million and 3.1 million, respectively by February 15, 2015. The data further shows that the number of total cellular subscribers reached 136.63 million from 136.482 million, registering an increase of 0.15 million against 0.7 million during the same period of corresponding month. According to telecom experts the main reason behind the slow pace of subscriber numbers was the introduction of Subscriber Identification Modules (SIMs) verification through Biometric Verification System (BVS). The government has stopped the issuance of new SIMs from retail centers which negatively effected the growth of SIMs. The number of SIMs is likely to further decrease, if customers failed to get their SIMs verified by April 14, 2015, as after the deadline all unverified SIMs would be blocked.