World Bank (WB) has asked Pakistan for a 'national roaming policy', which will help reduce the need for redundant infrastructure investments, particularly in rural areas, as at present there is no national roaming policy in place for Pakistan.

According to an updated project report on "rural telecommunications and e-services project", roaming allows for cellular customers to access telecommunication services, when travelling outside of the geographic coverage of the home network, by using another carrier's network.
By doing so, the requirement for infrastructure investments to cover a specific area would be less and would result in a more efficient use of capital.
However in Pakistan there is no national roaming policy that permits cellular subscribers to access a competitor's network.
This is a particularly significant issue in rural areas where infrastructure roll out cost would be economically prohibitive for more than one operator.
By encouraging national roaming agreements between operators, the regulator could help promote greater infrastructure roll out in rural areas. The cellular license agreement has a provision of national roaming with an objective to promote competition in rural areas.
Globally, the report mentioned, the average disbursement rate of universal service fund (USF) is said to be around 30 percent. This poor record has prompted the GOP to separate the management and implementation of the USF from MOIT's operations.
Although the USFC is bound by the USF policy, its independence will help to ensure that the implementation and disbursement functions will not be delayed by normal government processes.