BY: Ahsan Jamil
The broadband industry has innumerable applications in today`s world in range of areas. It has given lifeline to several dying industries and opened up springboard for new prospects like e-commerce. Some of the booming areas fuelled by broadband are education, healthcare, environment and trade. Broadband is like oxygen for corporate sector to synchronize the business pattern according to rapidly changing dynamics. It imparts direct and indirect effect on socio economic sustainability of the country. Broadband industry market needs a flutter in Pakistan particularly; authorities, public and private sector organizations connected to it are working extensively to improve their services and their exhaustive efforts will greatly impact to push country towards e-revolution and bring it at par to the developed countries.
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) held a Broadband Forum recently to explore new ways in order to capitalize on the enormous potential of broadband services in Pakistan with reference to rapidly increasing subscription rate.
Speaking on the occasion, Chairman PTA, Dr. Syed Ismail Shah articulated the role of PTA as enabler and facilitator and said that the availability of mobile broadband has opened new avenues of opportunities for Pakistan. The high speed internet will revolutionize all other industries in the country in the forthcoming years. Mobile broadband has been introduced in Pakistan through successful auction of 3G and 4G spectrums last year. He said that it was imperative that the benefits of broadband should reach to the grass root level in the form of e-services e-health, e-education, e-commerce, e-governance etc.
The speakers of seminar also voiced their concerns on imposition of tax on 3G/4G networks by Government of Punjab and urged them to revise the decision for larger interest of the broadband industry by keeping stakeholders on board.
Member (Finance) PTA remarked on the potentials of mobile broadband and deemed it as enabler for digital financial inclusion. He said that government had made National Financial Inclusion Policy which aims at 50% population of the country will have their digital accounts by 2020. He said that technical regulation for mobile banking was being worked upon by PTA and State Bank jointly. Currently, Rs.327 million revenue is coming from mobile segment and it is expected to cross 800 million in future, he added.
The seminar proved to be a pivot in which IT and telecom industry experts, representatives of telecom companies and participants from academia gave their valuable input and consultative opinions for betterment of services in broadband area. Such forums need to be conducted on frequent basis to entail active participation from concerned circles in order to have a better foothold on policy makers for furtherance of this crucial area that has tendency to intensify the economic temperature of the country.