No backtracking on policies, Awais tells South Asia mobiles summit
ISLAMABAD: Minister for Information Technology Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari Thursday said the government was in the process of legislation aimed at checking "anti-competitive behaviour, facilitate growth and ensure continuity of policies" in the telecom sector.

"We are aggressively working on the data protection act and the e-crime bill alongside several other key initiatives to ensure the telecom sector kept up its growth and achieve new milestones in the coming days," he said in a keynote address to the two-day 2nd South Asia Mobiles Summit 2005 that started in the capital here.

The minister told delegates from South Asian nations Pakistan's telecom sector was in the midst of an exponential growth with over 1 million new mobile phone subscribers being added every month. "During the consultancy process with the World Bank ahead of the mobile cellular policy last year, we were told by the World Bank the tele-density in Pakistan would reach 10 per cent in the next five years but by the grace of God we have crossed the mark within one year with out tele density going past 11 per cent," he added.

He told the delegates that only a couple of years ago a call made from Islamabad to Karachi used to cost around Rs 40 but now the companies were offering such a call facility for less than Rs 4 which reflected on the scale of growth witnessed in the sector in recent years.

He said that while mobile phone was popular within the urban limits, it was gaining a more robust response in the rural areas where its affordability had attracted a large section of the rural population to get connected. "Besides affordable rates, another reason for this fast-paced roll out of telecom services is a growing purchasing power in the countryside," he added.

Awais Leghari believed that as competition grew in the sector, the prices would come down further while the quality of services and products would go up for its being the major factor for companies to stay competitive in the market. "I foresee Pakistan emerging as an interesting place in the next few years for investors in the area of infrastructure development," he said.

He said the country did face some problems with regard to international connectivity but that phase was over and the country was set to get connected with a new submarine cable next month. "We are also about to be linked with India through optic fibre while two to three backbone systems other than that of PTCL are also under way," he said.

He said the government would table in the parliament the proposed universal service fund in the next couple of weeks to make it operational. "This fund for which every telecom operator contributes 1.5 per cent of its revenue, would be up for use for the telecom companies to reach out to far-flung and thinly-populated areas," he said.

Awais said the government was also considering giving incentives to companies to promote infrastructure sharing. "We are not complacent at the buoyant telecom sector … we are keeping a close watch and would be quick to bring out incentive-based policies without changing the spirit of the existing policies which would stay for their stipulated periods," he said.

He described PTCL's privatization as the biggest achievement of the government which had the necessary political will and the heart to complete the privatization process. "With the sector liberalized now, I hope the competition remains healthy and it is sustained to a point where it does not hurt the growth," he said.

Earlier addressing the inaugural session, member telecom ministry of information technology Nooruddin Baqai said Pakistan had made considerable progress in the telecom sector but there was still enough room for improvement and efforts were afoot to harness the potential of ICTs to achieve betterment of the masses.

Babar A Khan, chief executive of Ufone, also threw light on development leading to what he called a massive expansion of the telecom sector. He said his company alone had added 2.4 million new subscribers since July 2004 with its coverage reaching 180 cities and highway routes.

Rashid Khan of Mobilink said the telecom operators in Pakistan were set to face various challenges including a rapid network roll out, development of associated industries, sourcing capital from the domestic and international market, development of backbone infrastructure and managing growth, including talent management and process standardization.
- posted @ Friday, September 09, 2005