Pakistan Telecom and IT updates

[ghazi52]

Federal IT Minister Laid the Cornerstone for a New IT Park in Islamabad

During the ceremony, the federal IT minister told that once completed, the IT park will provide employment to about 15,000 people. In addition to that, the minister told that millions of dollars will be provided to the country in terms of revenue.

He also mentioned that this is an important step in fulfilling the Prime Minister’s Digital Pakistan Vision. The State-of-the-art IT Park is being built on 15 acres in Chak Shehzad. According to the minister, South Korea will provide the soft loan for a 12-story IT park

 

[ghazi52]

IT Ministry Plans to Bring 5G to Pakistan by 2023

Ministry of Information Technology and Telecom aims to deploy 5G in Pakistan by 2023. The ministry’s 5G plan is based on the fact that the telecom industry has grown to $16.9 billion after acquiring international investments worth $1.2 billion over the last three years.

The ministry shared this plan with Prime Minister Imran Khan while talking about the telecom sector’s performance in detail. It said that the projects for “deep fiberisation” have already been started across the country by the Universal Service Fund (USF).

This should help expand telecom services and internet availability even in remote and backward areas of the country

 

[ghazi52]

Ufone telecom wins unused Pakistan's spectrum

Reuters
10 Sep 2021


ISLAMABAD: Cellular company Ufone on Friday won a bid for Pakistan's unused spectrum with $279 million, said the country's telecom authority.

Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA) started the process to sell the unused spectrum late last year.

The spectrum is in the 1800 and 2100 MHz bands typically used by operators for 4G LTE (long-term evolution) networks that offer faster video streaming and internet downloads.

"Total Spectrum won by Ufone is 9 MHz in 1800 MHz band which is 70.3 percent of the total offered spectrum in the said band during the current auction," the PTA said in a statement.

The addition will boost Ufone spectrum holdings from 6 MHz to 15 MHz in 1800 MHz band, enhancing quality and increasing coverage for voice and data services, it added.

Pakistan has nearly 100 million 3G/4G subscribers, and the new spectrum known as Next Generation Mobile Services (NGMS) is seen a precursor to any 5G launch.

The Pakistan telecom market is dominated by Jazz, backed by Netherlands-based Veon Ltd; Telenor Pakistan, backed by Norway's state-controlled Telenor; Zong, owned by China Mobile; and Ufone, which is controlled by state-owned Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd.

 

[ghazi52]

In a major development towards enhancing the IT industry growth in Pakistan, two MoUs (Memorandum of Understandings) were signed on Thursday for setting up software technology parks in Faisalabad and Rawalpindi.

The software technology park in Rawalpindi will be located near Amazon Outlet Mall and will cover 44,000 square feet, meeting the needs of the technology sector for more software technology parks in Islamabad and Rawalpindi.

Whereas, the software technology park in Faisalabad will be located near Sitara Chemical's Ali Fatima College of Science & Technology and will span 19,500 square feet. It will be the city's first software technology park.

 

[Ali_Baba]

This is excellent news - both for the growth of IT services in Pakistan for Pakistan, but also for creating the foundation for allowing an IT Outsourcing to start taking place in Pakistan.

CPEC will help deliver the fast internet connection speed to allow for the outsourcing to be located in Pakistan and these IT parks start to provide the places where those people can sit and work.

The remaining part is to clean up the Pakistani degree system so that the BSc is to the same standard as in India and else where in the world - ie 3 years that meet the minimum tuition hours and assessment and degree awarding process.

Get all 3 things in place, then companies can and will look to Pakistan as a place where it can outsource IT services to.

Pakistan is 35 years LATE to the IT outsourcing game - better late then never but you have to question the lack of longterm strategic economic planning.

 

[Muhammad Saftain Anjum]

I

This is excellent news - both for the growth of IT services in Pakistan for Pakistan, but also for creating the foundation for allowing an IT Outsourcing to start taking place in Pakistan.

CPEC will help deliver the fast internet connection speed to allow for the outsourcing to be located in Pakistan and these IT parks start to provide the places where those people can sit and work.

The remaining part is to clean up the Pakistani degree system so that the BSc is to the same standard as in India and else where in the world - ie 3 years that meet the minimum tuition hours and assessment and degree awarding process.

Get all 3 things in place, then companies can and will look to Pakistan as a place where it can outsource IT services to.

I have read some news about IT experts who are coming back from abroad and they are starting their own companies.I am sure they have experience and will help Pakistan a lot.

 

[ghazi52]

5G technology: Strategic plan, roadmap being readied:

Tahir Amin
26 Sep 2021

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for IT and Telecommunication Syed Aminul Haque has said that a strategic plan and roadmap for 5G technology in Pakistan is being formulated, keeping in view, the aspects of spectrum management, infrastructure development, review of telecom regulations, and 5G applications/use cases.

The federal minister for IT was addressing the Digital Cooperation Organization (DCO) virtual meeting.

“The government is committed to reducing the digital divide between rural and urban communities and focuses on youth empowerment and gender equality,” he added.

He said that the Government of Pakistan brought many reforms for creating a better environment for tech-based businesses in the country.

Due to the effective policies of the present government, Pakistan witnessed landmark achievements in the ICT sector in recent years, he added.

The DCO held a forum along-side the UN General Assembly, inviting the ministers from all the seven-member countries.

The aim of the event was to discuss the role of the DCO in building an inclusive digital age within which more nations can prosper.

Ministers from all seven founder member countries, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Nigeria, Oman, and Saudi Arabia including Pakistan attended the meeting, while Maria-Francesca Spatolisano, assistant secretary general for policy coordination and inter-agency affairs of UN also joined the session.


IT Minister Aminul Haque further said that the rise of digital economy, accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic, transformed our world, but its global potential is yet to be fully realised.

Countries face new challenges as the global scale of the digital economy and the power of private sector actors grows.

Syed Aminul Haque highlighted the efforts of Pakistan towards digitisation and said that under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan, Pakistan has re-energized its digital transformation journey with the launch of Digital Pakistan that aims to enhance connectivity, improve digital infrastructure, increase investment in digital skills, promote innovation, and technology entrepreneurship.

The Government of Pakistan strongly believes in mass adoption of emerging digital technologies and innovative applications to enable cross-sector socio-economic development and transformation of economic activities, governance models, social interaction, and achievement of sustainable development goals, Haque said.

He mentioned that Pakistan has been named one of the fastest growing economies in Asia in Mckinsey and Co’s latest report on the Pakistani ecosystem.

During the fiscal year 2020-21, Pakistan’s IT exports increased 47.4 percent and crossed the $2 billion mark for the first time in the country’s history.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) ranked Pakistan among the best countries in terms of the affordability of ICT services, while according to the latest ILO report, Pakistan has been the 2nd largest supplier of online labor in software development and technology.

Pakistan substantially improved its position in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business report.


Copyright Business Recorder, 2021

 

[ghazi52]

In Azad Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan, zong defeats Jazz to gain the 4G spectrum

Zong defeats JAZZ to secure 4G Spectrum in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJ&K) and Gilgit Baltistan. With an auction Winning Price of $15.442 Million, Zong emerged as the Highest Bidder, securing 11.2 MHz in the highly coveted 1800 MHz Band. Hours and 18 rounds were auctioned off.

“We’re pleased to have acquired a total of 11.2 MHz spectrum in AJ&K and GB,” said Wang Hua, Zong’s Chairman and CEO, at the event.

With this new acquisition, we will be able to provide unique connectivity experiences to the people of the region while also assisting the government in meeting its socioeconomic objectives.”

 

[ghazi52]

Nokia wants to help develop 5G ecosystem roadmap in Pakistan: officials

Tahir Amin
03 Oct 2021


ISLAMABAD: Nokia has expressed keen interest for collaboration with the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication (MoITT) to develop a roadmap for 5G ecosystem in Pakistan.

This was revealed by senior officials at the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication (MoITT), which has formally launched the consultation for the launch of 5G services in Pakistan.

The ministry has evaluated seven bands for adoption of 5G services in the country and presently, in a process of assessing the options available for timely launch of 5G services in Pakistan.

In this connection, the following bands are being evaluated for adoption of 5G services as low bands, mid bands and high bands: (a) 700 MHz; (b) 2.3 GHz; (c) 2.6 GHz; (d) 3.5 GHz; (e) Millimeter wave bands; (f) C-Band (3.6-4.2) GHz, and (g) Unlicensed Backhaul Frequency bands (P2P and P2MP).

The ministry in view of these bands has requested the Frequency Allocation Board (FAB) for sharing the current status and availability of all 5G spectrum in the above identified frequency bands.

The government is planning of launching 5G services in the country by December 2022, which will open new avenues for investment and will accelerate progress towards achieving the goal of “Digital Pakistan”, said an official of the ministry.

Official sources revealed to Business Recorder that Federal Minister for IT and Telecom Syed Aminul Haque wanted to launch 5G services by December 2022 and the early launch of 5G services in Pakistan has been prioritised.

An important meeting with 5G vendors chaired by Member Telecom Muhammad Umar Malik was held at the MoITT to discuss the way forward.

The meeting was attended by representatives from Huawei, Ericsson and Nokia online from their regional headquarters.

Officers from the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and the FAB were also present in the meeting.

During the meeting, detailed technical discussions were held to assess vendor support and readiness for launch of 5G services in Pakistan.

Interoperable airwaves band with interoperable UE and 5G Telecom equipment including launch strategy considering business cases were discussed to make the inclusion attractive and win-win situation for citizens, industry and the government.

Sources revealed that Nokia has expressed keen interest for collaboration to develop a roadmap for 5G ecosystem.

Quoting Nokia representatives, the sources said that the company is fully committed to share its global experience about 5G technology setup, phased evolution and use cases from other markets with the MoITT.

Moving forward this collaboration to develop a roadmap for 5G ecosystem will help accelerate Digital Pakistan initiative in Pakistan, the sources added.

Aminul Haque has stated that a strategic plan and a roadmap for 5G technology in Pakistan is being formulated keeping in view the aspects of spectrum management, infrastructure development, review of telecom regulations and 5G applications/use cases.

The ministry has constituted an advisory committee for 5G Planning in Pakistan (5G Pakistan Plan Committee) to define a roadmap and finalise recommendations for 5G technology readiness in the country.

The committee will develop a strategic plan and a roadmap for 5G technology in Pakistan with the formulation of working groups for 5G spectrum management, telecom infrastructure development, telecom regulations review including health and safety and 5G applications and use cases.

The committee comprises members from the MoITT, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), FAB, PM Office SRIU (Strategic Reforms Implementation Unit), PM Taskforce on IT and Telecom, academia, cellular mobile operators, and telecom vendors.

The PTA last year granted permission to mobile operators for conducting test and trial of 5G technology under limited environment and non-commercial basis.

The PTA had issued “Framework for Test and Development of Future Technologies (Particularly Fifth Generation (5G) Wireless Networks in Pakistan)” for facilitating testing/trial only of 5G technology and related services in Pakistan.

The rapid growth in mobile data traffic and consumer demand for enhanced mobile broadband experience have led to an increasing emphasis on the upcoming fifth generation of mobile technology (5G).

Seen as a comprehensive wireless-access solution with the capacity to address the demands and requirements of mobile communication for the IMT-2020 and beyond, it is projected that this technology will operate in a highly heterogeneous environment and provide ubiquitous connectivity for a wide range of devices, new applications and use cases, the PTA added.

The scope of IMT-2020 is much broader than the previous generations of mobile broadband communication systems.

The ITU’s work in developing the specifications for IMT-2020 in close collaboration with the whole gamut of 5G stakeholders is now well underway along with the associated spectrum management and spectrum identification aspects.

The IMT-2020 will be a cornerstone for all of the activities related to attaining the goals in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021

 

[ghazi52]

Strengthening IT skills

Barkan Saeed
October 4, 2021

Pakistani employees of online marketplace company Kaymu work at their office in Karachi. — AFP


For Pakistan to increase its informational technology (IT)/information technology-enabled services (ITeS) exports, one of the most critical things is good quality IT/ITeS workers as our exports are directly proportional to the number of quality IT professionals we produce.

Pakistan’s IT/ITeS exports are growing at a remarkable rate of 45 per cent per year. These exports are much needed as they not only help with the country’s trade deficit but are also helping Pakistan move towards the dream of digital Pakistan. They are creating a highly paid middle class that is paid a much higher salary than in other formal sectors of Pakistan.

As per the P@SHA salary survey, the average monthly salary for an entry-level programmer is at least Rs51,344. The salary average is around Rs148,000 for programmers.

To keep pace with the rapidly expanding IT/ITeS exports, there is a huge demand for skilled people in the industry. For most companies, getting business is not a problem. It’s simply about how many good-quality resources they can find and bill to customers.

Every 100,000 trained professionals can bring in an additional $2-3 billion in remittances per year

The demand for skilled people in tech is also evident globally where countries like Japan, Germany, USA are facing shortages in hundreds of thousands of skilled tech workers. This is also a good opportunity for Pakistan to train tech workers and export this highly skilled manpower which holds high remittance potential for Pakistan. These workers will also improve the image of Pakistan as a ‘tech destination’ — every 100,000 trained professionals can bring in an additional $2-3 billion in remittances per year.

Can we increase our IT graduate pool to 100k per year?

As per the Higher Education Commission, the number of technology graduates (computer sciences, software engineering, artificial intelligence, blockchain, etc) produced by Pakistan is in the range of 25,000-30,000. One way is to scale existing universities to produce 100k graduates.

This will be a very costly exercise as a huge investment in infrastructure will be required. There is also an issue of quality of graduates as currently only 4,000-5,000 undergraduate students are marked as ‘industry ready’.

Though the proportion of fresh graduates who successfully land a job in the IT/ITeS industry is small, yet they are not readily productive without requiring further training in the industry to cover the skill gap. We need to improve our graduate quality at the university level so the industry can work on polishing the skills rather than training them on basic skills.

How can current graduate quality be improved?

There are certain projects we can undertake to improve the quality of students at the university level.

The first step to improve the quality of students at university will be to engage visiting faculty of programmers from the industry. Universities are mostly far from where the industry is so it makes sense for people who are passionate about giving back to society to get engaged in teaching at the universities.

Our universities have not been able to motivate and attract experienced professionals from the industry to contribute to their mission of training the students. This can be attributed to unattractive financial incentives (Rs500-2,000 per hour of teaching which typically requires a few hours of preparation) as well as the unwelcoming culture for an ‘outsider’.

A simple solution can be to engage industry professionals to teach on weekends or in the evenings and allow them to group their biweekly classes into one class.

The second step to improve the quality of current graduates is by engaging university professors in an industry training program and linking their appraisals to this program. We ideally need to create a separate promotion program for industry-oriented professors (who are majorly focused on teaching) vs research-oriented professors.

The thirst step is to start joint innovative projects of industry-academia. This has happened in the past as well but we need to create an incentive program where the professors and university own some equity in the project. Currently, these projects are mostly done to get research papers that are required for promotion in universities with no interest in the commercialisation of the products.

Another good idea is that overseas Pakistanis with PhDs working in the industry internationally or teaching in top universities of the world can be invited to come to Pakistan and the HEC can allocate funds for this.

There are many Pakistanis who want to come back to Pakistan and contribute. Especially many overseas Pakistanis working internationally in the industry would like some form of way where they can also do industry-based research projects which can later be commercialised and converted into startups.

With these projects, we can start to improve the quality of graduates at our universities. This is going to have a great impact on our IT/ITeS exports.

This will be our investment in our youth and will bring valuable export remittance to the country.


The writer is the ex-chairman of Pakistan Software Houses Association and runs an IT company based out of Islamabad

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, October 4th, 2021

 

[ghazi52]

Services exports up 54pc to $1bn in first two months of FY22

Mubarak Zeb Khan
October 9, 2021


Pakistan’s exports of services grew by about 54 per cent in the first two months of the current fiscal from what it was a year ago, according to the latest data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.

In absolute terms, the value of exports reached $1.008 billion in July-August 2021 from $799.94m over the corresponding months of last financial year.

Services exports posted a growth of 53.64pc in August to $531.29m against $345.81m over the corresponding month of last year. On a month-on-month basis, exports increased by 11.38pc.

The export of services went up by 9.19pc year-on-year to $5.937bn in FY21 compared to $5.437bn during the same period last year.

The growth in the export of services are mainly led by the highest-ever export of IT services. Services exports also include finance and insurance, transport and storage, wholesale and retail trade, public administration and defence sectors.

Imports increased by 31.42pc to $1.627bn

The commerce ministry has fixed a target of $7.5bn for services exports for 2021-22.

The services sector has emerged as the main driver of economic growth as its share in the GDP increased from 56pc in 2005-06 to nearly 61pc in 2020-21.

On the other hand, services imports increased by 31.42pc to $1.627bn in July and August against $1.238bn over the corresponding months of last year.

In August, the imports of services went up by 88.89pc to $885.98m against $469.05m over the corresponding month of last year. On a monthly basis, the imports of services grew by 19.55pc.

The imports of services fell by 10.75pc to $7.812bn in July-June FY21 from $8.753bn over the corresponding months last year.

The trade deficit has increased by 41.24pc to $618.76m in July and August against $438.10m over the corresponding months of last year.

In August, the trade deficit in services went up by 187.8pc to $354.69m from $123.24m over the corresponding month of last year. The trade deficit declined by 43.45pc to $1.875bn in July-June FY21 against $3.315bn over the corresponding months last year.

In the budget 2021-22, the government has announced several measures to promote export of services, especially information technology. The incentives offered to exporters are related to tariff and non-tariff services.

 

[ghazi52]

Pakistan needs to produce 100,000 IT professionals to raise IT exports by $3-4bn

October 18, 2021 -

Online skill training is one of the most talked-about topics and is proving very effective globally.
Pakistani universities produce around 25,000 graduates per year. For our information technology exports to increase by $3-4 billion a year, we need to add to increase this number to around 100,000 IT professionals per year.

This is an extremely difficult and costly exercise as producing this many professionals requires massive investment in infrastructure by creating new universities and increasing the capacity of existing universities. One of the best and cost-effective ways to do this is by using the existing infrastructure and doing short programmes such as six-month boot camps, one-year diplomas, and two-year industry-focused degrees.

As a country, we should also explore the model of industry-oriented universities similar to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) and industry-oriented Fachhochschulen universities in Europe.

India has made huge investments in IIT where they take in around 2,000 students per IIT from all over India. This has allowed them to create an extraordinary class of individuals who go on to lead the best companies in the world as well as in India.

We should teach programming to students instead of theories of who invented the computer — this is already happening in KP where government school students can create websites and games at the school level

The second concept is of the industry-oriented universities similar to ones in Germany or Austria where students interested in joining a field go for Fachhochschulen universities. In such universities, usually, no Masters degree is offered and the focus is completely on training professionals for the field. The professors hired usually have at least three years of experience working in the sector.

The Higher Education Commission (HEC) recently introduced a two-year associate degree at the Bachelors level. The only difference in this idea would be to focus on only industry-related skills in this two-year degree. Many would argue that why we need universities at all since it’s a skill-based world now. The problem in Pakistan mostly is that parents and society value degrees and we need to have some sort of degree from the HEC to incentivise them.

Such degrees would allow students to come early into the market, reduce the cost of getting into the industry by 50 per cent as well as allow them to become bread earners for their families early. They can continue their education over weekends or online programmes for a four-year degree.

The degree should be designed together with industry standards and 50pc of the faculty should be from the industry to teach these professionals. The industry can also work with universities to create a Qarz-e-Hasna programme where the industry can fund the scholarship of students who can later come to work for the industry for healthy salaries and their loans can be waived off by the industry.

Online skill training is one of the most talked-about topics and is proving very effective globally. Anyone can go on a website like Coursera or Udemy and take a course in artificial intelligence or blockchain. They can learn the skill. The question here is why is it still not happening at higher levels in Pakistan? Why do we hardly see students who have used these websites to reskill them or learn new skills?

While I can talk about a dozen problems of why it is not happening, in Pakistan, the formula to make an online skill training programme successful is to have remote monitoring of students where they are given tasks. This is more true for coding programmes where student codes and projects can be reviewed remotely by a team of programmers. This can be combined with online group lectures or motivational training to make them feel that they are part of something real and it will benefit them.

As a country, we need to create such a hybrid programme as a completely online programme won’t work for most of our students. Ignite National Technology Fund and the Ministry of IT in collaboration with the Virtual University already have some experience of running such programmes.

The idea of boot camps is also very popular in the tech industry where professionals are engaged in a six-month rigorous course and trained in a specific technology. The cost of such a programme can depend on the technology. These boot camps are used all over the world to train students from other fields to reskill them for skills like programming, cloud, etc.

We can create boot camps that are led by industry experts in collaboration with universities for some core courses to train our graduates from other areas and equip them with the latest technology skills.

One of the last but most critical pieces of the entire plan is the need to create a specially designed curriculum for our higher secondary students that focuses on teaching them programming and analytical skills at the school level. We should review the current curriculum of higher secondary school students so that the quality of student intake at universities and future programmes can increase.

We can also teach programming to students instead of theories of who invented the computer, which was the biggest computer in the world and how the world is making supercomputers. This is already happening in KP where government school students can create websites and games at the school level. We just need to roll it out to the entire country.

The IT and IT-enabled services industry is a promising industry not only for the export sector of Pakistan but also for creating a highly paid market for youth. There is also a need for all government departments like Pakistan Software Export Board, Ignite, HEC, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information Technology Board, Punjab Information Technology Board, provincial and federal educational ministries, etc who are working on digital skills to work together to solve this challenge for Pakistan’s bright future.

The writer is the ex-chairman of Pakistan Software Houses Association and runs an IT company based out of Islamabad

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, October 18th, 2021

 

[ghazi52]

Pak-China IT cooperation under CPEC to produce dividends

October 20, 2021




BEIJING, Oct 19 (APP):The cooperation in digital infrastructure and IT under China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) will soon make some significant progress under the IT industry joint working group (JWG) established at 10th CPEC Joint Cooperation Committee (JCC) meeting, said Du Zhenli, Deputy Director-General of China International Engineering Consulting Corporation (CIECC).

With rich labor resources, a broad market, and a wide radiating capacity covering the Middle East and Central Asia, Pakistan has become one of the fastest-growing IT markets in the world, but there is still an imbalance, Du also an Investment Counsellor appointed by Pakistan to promote Chinese investment in Pakistan added.

At present, there are about 3.7 million broadband users in Pakistan.

Among the 51,000 villages in the country, most are not covered by telecommunications services.

 Given that 60% of Pakistan’s population is under the age of 30, it can be expected that communication services will see rapid development in the future.

The Pakistani government has listed the expansion of telecommunications infrastructure and the popularization of telecommunications services, especially to the vast rural areas and underdeveloped areas as an important developmental task, China Economic Net (CEN) reported.

“With the increasing importance of the digital economy in the world, Pakistan has a strong demand to develop its own information technology. Huawei, ZTE, China Mobile and other service providers have a very solid foundation which can boost Pakistan’s industrial development,” said Du.

The Pakistani government and people welcome foreign investment. The Pakistani government has carried out economic reform, economic liberalization, and privatization, and formulated a relatively liberal and open investment policy.

The Pakistani government has signed investment protection agreements with more than 40 countries, and double taxation avoidance agreements with more than 50 countries, including China.

With the advance of CPEC construction, Pakistan’s transport infrastructure and energy infrastructure conditions have been greatly improved, significantly promoting the improvement of Pakistan’s investment environment.

“The establishment of SEZs is not the ultimate goal, rather, they should be utilized to attract major IT industry projects to land here.”

Mr. Du Zhenli has been involved in consultation and research on the cooperation between China and Pakistan for 15 years. Since October 2016, under the leadership of the CPEC Secretariat of China’s National Development and Reform Commission, he provided consultation and technical support related to industrial park cooperation under CPEC.

So far, the Pakistani government has signed investment protection agreements with more than 40 countries and double taxation avoidance agreements with more than 50 countries, including China.

The Pakistani Investment Strategy 2020-2023 takes into account the unique opportunity of China’s industrial and capacity transfer. It will pay more attention to the cooperation in the private sector of both countries, take labor-intensive and export-oriented projects as the forerunner, and finally realize industrial diversification.

“In the future, when the individual projects are specifically landed, these preferential policies may still need to be deepened and refined,” suggested Du.

 

[ghazi52]

Provision of 5G can greatly benefit Pakistan's healthcare, education sectors

• Say low latency will improve access to far-flung, remote areas

BR Web Desk
21 Nov 2021


DUBAI: Pakistan stands to derive great value from the provision of fifth-generation (5G) of cellular networks, and would be able to especially benefit its healthcare and education sectors, said experts on the sidelines of the Dubai Airshow 2021 that concluded recently.

Apart from benefitting telecom operators, the provision of 5G would enable users in remote and far-flung areas to access services at higher speeds, improving not only experience, but also availability to a larger number of people at the same time.

Pakistan's pupil-teacher ratio at the primary level is 44 to one, according to the World Bank that cited 2018 data by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

In a high-income country, the ratio improves drastically to 14 to one, while in lower-middle income places, the number is still better than Pakistan's at 29 to one.

Experts say 5G services, with its low latency and widespread applications, can help overcome part of the challenge.

"You can deliver high quality and new types of content like virtual reality or omega reality," Nikos Papagiannopoulos, senior project manager ITT Data Services at Athens International Airport, told Business Recorder at the Dubai Airshow. "You can provide full classroom experience through 5G networks."

However, the official said, much like any new technology, countries will have to explore and experiment. "There are so many capabilities. If you decompose 5G into its elements and characteristics, and see what they do better, you can use those to build the applications required."

The official's remarks echo those of a report by global consulting firm McKinsey that said cases identified in just four commercial domains – mobility, healthcare, manufacturing, and retailers – could boost global GDP by $1.2 trillion to $2 trillion by 2030.

In its Discussion Paper published in February 2020 titled, 'Connected world: An evolution in connectivity beyond the 5G revolution', McKinsey said although gaps will remain, enabling more people to plug into global flows of information, communication, and services could unlock greater human potential and prosperity in many developing nations.

Healthcare application

The paper also said that connectivity-enabled innovations can make it possible to monitor patients remotely, use AI-powered tools for more accurate diagnoses, and automate many tasks so that caregivers can spend more time with patients.

"Having remote medical operations and surgeries in remote areas where doctors are scarcely found or surgeon specialities are missing, you can have robotics undertake those tasks and have very low latency and very good accuracy of having operations on patients," said Papagiannopoulos.

Similarly, Ramki Doraiswami, director at Technology Solution Delivery, said in terms of healthcare, where a lot of heavy images are captured and need to be transferred before an analytical report is produced, 5G could be a key enabler.

Doraiswami added that the technology could also help a country where a large number of students are paired with one teacher. "(In this case) when you require a lot of bandwidth, 5G could play a key role."
While the application usage of 5G in Pakistan is still far away, the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecom says the aim is to roll out the technology in 2023.

On its official website, the ministry said that it has constituted an advisory committee for 5G Planning in Pakistan (5G Pakistan Plan Committee) to define a roadmap and finalise recommendations for 5G Technology readiness in Pakistan.

"The Committee will develop strategic plan and roadmap for 5G technology in Pakistan with the formulation of working groups for 5G Spectrum Management, telecom infrastructure development, telecom regulations review including health and safety and 5G applications and use cases.

The committee comprises members from the Ministry of IT and Telecommunication, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, Frequency Allocation Board (FAB), PM Office SRIU (Strategic Reforms Implementation Unit), PM Taskforce on IT & Telecom, academia, Cellular Mobile Operators and Telecom vendors, it said.

 

[ghazi52]

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has reduced the Mobile Termination Rate (MTR) from Rs. 0.70 per minute to Rs. 0.50 per minute from 1st January 2022 that would lower tariffs for making off-net calls for consumers.

PTA has announced to reduce the Mobile Termination Rate (MTR) from Rs. 0.70 per minute to Rs. 0.50 per minute from 1st January 2022 after a thorough consultation with the telecom industry.

In a press release, the authority further announced that the rates shall be further reduced to Rs. 0.40 per minute from 1st July 2022.

According to PTA, the move would more competitive and innovative offerings such as free minute off-net bundles for the consumers.