Daily Times

KARACHI: After two years of 3G/4G arrival in Pakistan, next generation technologies’ growth remained lower than expected as only 22 percent of total mobile consumers in the country subscribed 3G/4G services by the end of fiscal year 2015-16 (FY16).

According to industry experts, higher tariffs, costly gadgets, poor quality of service, improper deployment, poor literacy rate, poverty and alternative choice of better quality broadband services were the main reasons behind this insufficient growth of next generation technologies. Mobile broadband users in Pakistan reached 29.54 million at the end of June 2016, after five mobile phone companies unexpectedly lost a combined 3G/4G user base of 218,412 customers during the June 2106, said the data released by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).

Meanwhile, the overall teledensity in cellular phone sector hit 69 percent by the end of FY16 that was dropped to 60 percent in FY15. Number of subscribers in the country, including Azad Jammu and Kashmir and northern areas, touched 133.25 million by June this year. A senior telecom official, requesting anonymity, said, “Substandard quality of service is the main hurdle in swift penetration of next generation technologies as telecom operators instead of focusing on carpet coverage, have adopted aggressive marketing practices to win the race for market share.”

He said the regulators and operators failed to create 3G ecosystem, while 4G/LTE story is nothing more than value addition in basket of the companies. The official said while the operators are still investing heavily to get 4/G licenses, they are constantly lacking quality. “Frequent changes in regulations by government after the arrival of next generation technologies disrupted the operators’ strategies and plans for 3G/4G penetration,” he added.

People of Pakistan tend to browse only for entertainment purpose while the available 3G services of almost all operators are unable to cater the requirements of the users, so they prefer other broadband services like wi-fi in offices and homes, Muhammad Yasir, a telecom analyst, opined.

It was expected that the mobile broadband user-base would grow rapidly after the end of biometric SIM verification drive and after expansion of 3G/4G coverage in the new cities, however, the statistics of PTA showed that the expectation were not fulfilled yet. During the outgoing fiscal, the all five mobile operators added only 16 million mobile Internet users including 1.02 million 4G and Long Term Evolution (LTE) users.

Mobilink led the charts with 8.92 million 3G users while Telenor is closing in the gap with 8.38 million 3G subscribers. Zong secured third position with 5.99 million 3G subscribers and 680,620 users of 4G. Ufone struggled throughout the year to retain and gain its 3G subscription base as the semi-government owned company closed the FY16 with 5.23 million 3G users and Warid, despite having announced merger with Mobilink, grabbed 347,132 users of LTE by the end of June 2106.