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STAFF REPORT KHI: The mobile broadband users in Pakistan demand high-speed Internet service with significantly improved network coverage across the country.
“This indicates the greater need for investing in 3G and 4G mobile broadband networks by cellular operators for expansion of their services and accelerated socio-economic growth, said Danny Atme, General Manager Networks Nokia Pakistan.
But the demands and its supplies to customers depict a huge gap as a study Connectivity Scorecard found Pakistan has a low score in mobile broadband infrastructure.
The country scored 2.09 out of 10, ranking 25 out of the 26 developing telecom markets in mobile broadband connectivity, he said.
The study Connectivity Scorecard 2013 took into account key criteria such as consumer infrastructure, consumer usage and skills, business infrastructure and business usage and skills, public sector infrastructure and public sector usage and skills to measure the level of mobile broadband connectivity in Pakistan. Ovum forecasts the number of 3G/Wideband Code Division Multiple Access,(WCDMA) subscriptions in Pakistan will overtake Global System for Mobile (GSM) subscriptions by 2019 and there will be 103.4 million WCDMA subscriptions in Pakistan by the end of 2019, representing about 58 percent of the mobile market.
It also forecasts the adoption of 4G will be more modest than for 3G for the foreseeable future, with the number of Long Term Evolution (LTE) subscriptions in Pakistan reaching about 6.6 million by the end of 2019.