About 100 foreign and local firms have applied for licences of landline telephone operation in the country.
The Ministry of Information Technology & Telecommunications is optimistic about the deregulated telecom sector which is ready to take off.
This was stated by the Minister of Information Technology & Telecom, Awais Ahmed Khan Leghari, at the inaugural session of three-day Pakistan Developer Conference-PDC-2004, here on Tuesday.
The ministry would announce broadband internet policy within a month providing fast and effective connectivity at cheaper rates, he said, adding that "the departments concerned have completed their task and I hope the policy would be announced in a month which would benefit the masses at grass-roots level."
Awais said, "We have evaluated potential of DSL broadband services in the country and I hope the policy would be a revolutionary step in the IT sector of the country."
In order to achieve broadband service growth in the country, content and the end-user industry (sale of personal computers) need to be grown in parallel, he added.
The Minister said that year-long policies of the government to liberalise the telecom sector had borne fruits as more and more potential investors from around the globe were seriously looking at these opportunities.
"We hope that with the arrival of two new players in cellular market, there would be more competition that wou1d bring down prices and increase the quality of services," he added.
He pledged to help the IT industry seeking reduction in costs incurred on the digital cross connectivity. The minister called for taking the fruits of IT to the doorsteps of the people who are yet to benefit from the IT-enabled services.
"The information technology is not translating anything beneficial to the common man and it is time we did that to facilitate the such people in particular as well as to improve efficiency of the public sector in general," he said.
Leghari said that the ministry is going to launch a programme to provide computers to people on instalments at cheaper rates. There is a proposal to collect Rs l000 a month as instalment fee with any of the utility bills from people intending to purchase computers on instalments, he said.
The ministry has also allocated a sizeable budget to help the local IT industry by creating demand for work for the software development houses through projects such as the e-government program, which involved projects worth more than a billion of rupees.
He called for recourse to modern research methodologies during the course of strategic review, which should be drafted in a well-thought-out manner so that it would provide a clear vision for Pakistan's IT industry, he added.
Due to shift in global IT trends and world-wide economic slowdown, Awais said, Pakistan unfortunately had not lived up to its full potential, with exports remaining stuck at around $125 million level for the past few years.
The ministry has initiated an e-government program which would be an out-source to local IT companies.
According to the program, the ministry will establish a Federal Data Centre, Automation of all 36 federal ministries and computerisation of the critical logistics as well as personnel management functions of armed forces.
He said that Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) Ufone would be automated and there was enough work for a large number of software engineers to be employed for the next several years.
Earlier, City Nazim Niamatullah Khan said that the IT revolution should benefit the common man, and called for far-reaching initiatives. "All these steps should be geared towards the betterment of the masses and not only for commercial purposes," he added.
The Managing Director of the Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB), Aamir Matin, said that this event would help the developer community understand the latest technologies and improve the quality of IT professionals, which is not very satisfactory at present.
He said that Pakistan's software exports need proper branding and all stakeholders should concentrate on this aspect.
The PSEB and Microsoft could collaborate in selecting individual developers and giving them a chance to work with the latter, he said.
He said that both organisations should pick up competent local IT companies and assist them in introducing local developers' work internationally, especially in Middle East.
The Founder and Director Project Botticelli Limited, Rafal Lukawiecki, spoke on 'New Revolution - A subjective view of the next 10 years on IT: Emergence of Knowledge Worker, and talked about the possible future course of action.
He advocated latest trends and facilitating people to understand IT, "Standardization and Integration are a must and developing IT nations need to look at this," he said.