3G and 4G licenses might be awarded soon

3G and 4G licenses might be awarded soon

3G and 4G licenses might be awarded soon

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) is planning to award 3G and 4G licenses to the telecom operators who are already set to start over 3G and 4G services in the major cities of Pakistan. It is also a rumor that license distribution ceremony will be held Prime Minister (PM) House, possibly in the coming week.

On 23rd April 2014, an electronic auction was held by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) for the licensing of 3G and 4G services in Pakistan. Bids of $1.182 billion were the result of that auction. Mobilink and Zong won 3G licenses for 10 MHz 3G spectrum while Ufone and Telenor won 3G licenses for 5 MHz 3G spectrums at the bottom price. In this auction, only Zong was the fortunate one who was able to win license for 4G spectrum.

These days, all these telecom operators of Pakistan are testing their 3G and 4G services in the major cities of the country. They all are anxiously waiting for the official release of the license awarding ceremony so they all could commercially start 3G and 4G services to the respective customers. It has been made mandatory by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) that all these operators have to pay minimum 50% of the promised bids within 30 days of auction if they want to acquire the license. For the formal stepping up of Pakistan in the next generation broadband technology, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) is in the preparation steps to award telecom companies with their won 3G and 4G license.

Here, we would like to mention to our readers that Warid is also preparing to launch its 4G spectrum in Pakistan. Though, Warid dint participated in the 4G auction but they are planning to make the most from their technology neutral license to launch 4G services in Pakistan. Warid has at present around 12 million subscribers and has 8.8 MHz spectrum from 1800 MHz band that is in addition to 5 MHz bandwidth in 900 MHz band, which Warid had bought at the time of its launch in 2004. Furthermore, A few days back, Warid also sent an SMS broadcast to its consumers that Warid would soon announce new data technology services. So it is a strong possibility that Warid will be the 1st telecom operator to launch 4G services in Pakistan.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *