3G technology in Pakistan is much awaited. The good news is that Telecom sector will see the availability of 3G technology by April 2014.
PTA Chairman Dr. Ismail Shah told that 3G services will be available to the public by April 2014 and testing services are going to be started in February 2014. Testing services will run in three large cities of Pakistan i.e. Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad.
According to Dr. Ismail Shah, Frequency Allocation Board has sent suggestions to the Cabinet Division in the month of January 2014. It is just a matter of time that they accept the suggestions and testing services will begin. Trial of the services will continue for almost 03 months.
During the testing/trial services, the auction of 3G licence will take place in the month of March 2014. In order to make the process of auction as transparent as possible, the process of auction will be telecasted on Live Television. Not only Pakistani telecom companies but Foreign telecom companies will also participate in bidding of the 3G licence auction.
Some sources also claim that, in addition to the 3G licence auction, the auction of 4G licence is also expected to happen side by side to the auction of 3G licences.
Current mobile internet in Pakistan is second generation spectrum or 2G which is very slow. 3G spectrum is much faster having speeds of 60 MB per second while 4G spectrum can attain a speed of 100 MB per second.
Mobile phone users in Pakistan are more than 12 crore 97 lac and Government of Pakistan decided to auction not only 3G but 4G licence as well so that mobile users can access the best internet technology available.
According to the experts, if this technology is auctioned transparently, it can really turn around the social and economic sides of Pakistan.
