Warid Goes Public with its 4G LTE Deployment Plans

Warid_4G_Urdu

Warid Telecom of Pakistan today went public with press ads (produced above) about its plans for going 4G LTE, to possibly become the first operator in the market to deploy 4G LTE network in the country.

A single sentenced message along with mention of 4G LTE clearly indicates that Warid is pretty much done with its homework and is now all set to go up with the 4G plans.

Despite not participating in recently held 3G / 4G auction, Warid has decided to go 4G LTE with its available spectrum that it had bought in 2004.

If you are not familiar with how they will do it, then go ahead and read our previous coverage on the same topic here.

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While there were hints that Pakistan Telecommunication Authority might not allow Warid for deploying 4G LTE, today’s press ads hint that PTA and Warid have reached a settlement. We don’t have confirmations from PTA on this though.

Last we heard was that PTA might not allow Warid to deploy 4G since it could unbalance the industry. Moreover, according to IM for 3G and 4G licensees, no new operator would be allowed to launch 3G / 4G services for 18 months as part of government’s agreement with spectrum winners.

While we don’t have official confirmation on regulatory approvals, as we said above, it is now certain that against all odds Warid has managed to convince PTA for the 4G LTE deployments.

We know that Warid CEO was to meet with Chairman PTA during this week and apparently things went successful on Warid’s part.

If sources are to be believed then Warid is aiming to run the test on 4G LTE in last week of May 2014, while its already in process of deploying 4G LTE network in 5 cities, which it will announce after successful tests accordingly.

On a related note, Warid sent an SMS broadcast to its customers the other day to tell them that Warid will announce new data technologies in days to come.

Warid has currently around 12 million subscribers. It has 8.8Mhz spectrum from 1800Mhz band in addition to 5Mhz in 900Mhz band, which it had bought at the time of launch in 2004.

Not to mention, Zong has said that it may take several months to launch 4G network, however, this may change after Warid’s announcement today. Zong was only 4G spectrum winner in April’s 3G and 4G Auction.

Tech and telecom reporter for over 15 years


  • Warid was left out before this.. well lets see how this will work out for Warid.. Having a second LTE operator in country will push Zong around to bring in LTE earlier. and im hoping 3G will also be launched in more cities in less time

  • “Warid’s today announcement” needs to be changed to Warid’s announcement today. Secondly, if are not familiar needs to be changed to If you are not familiar. #proofread

  • The deal between Warid & Govt is already cracked and our govt cant let “Arabic brothers” go angry so now all 5 operators shall go with “G” technology. Lets welcome Warid in the race.

  • So according to this logic of being technology neutral, Warid could have taken “permission from PTA” and launched a 4G LTE network back in 2010 when it first surfaced. The other operators could have been on such a disadvantage for these 4 years. While that hasn’t happened the other operators are such dumb to pay millions of $$$ for 3G/4G. And with this technology neutral logic it also means that for any new technology like 5G or whatever, Warid will just take “permission from PTA” and go ahead with it. WTF?.

    • Yes exactly , that is the reason they paid $$ when buying their spectrum when they first came in Pakistan :P so that was a good move on the first hand…

  • warid has no money for LTE.. they are just making fool to the people of Pakistan. Vendors and Banking sector are asking money from warid which warid owed from many years. PTA should notice this warid ad which published in newspaper.
    Actually warid is scared from customers to b port out to the other networks.. so they want their subscriber have hope for 4G. (just like people of Pakistan having hope for electricity).
    Do u think all companies are foolish to give more than 1 billion dollars to govt of Pakistan for 3G and 4G launching and warid is so smart that it will start 4G services without obtaining license.
    you must have cash in hand for starting new services.. otherwise sheikh chilli ki tarah khawab toh dekhnay mein koi harj nahi.
    warid atleast need 1.2 billion to 1.5 billion US dollars for starting this new services and it has debt of 800 million dollars.. abi apna debt he utaar dain toh barhi baat hai warid kay leay..

  • I am a warid user, we kept Quite because we knew our Worth we knew that Warid must have some thing excited or worth waiting for US!!!!!! ……

    for all the loosers….. its in your FACE …….

  • I am pretty sure that MOBILINK will buy the 4G License that is still pending and Mobilink had 10Mhz in there pocket ;)

  • Es ka matlab hy k ma apni purani sims wali basket ma se warid wali nikaal lun ? :P

  • Good news indeed! qadam uthao WARID, tumharay users tumharay saath hain! its just sad people are comparing WARID with the low-end ZONG network. WARID is better in every way! for the handsets, 4G aaye ga tau handsets bhee log lay lein ge for sure!

  • We need clarification from PTA I would like to ask propakistani to confirm through your resources and come out with exact details. Waiting for your next blog

    • 4G/LTE enabled phone isn’t a necessity for 4G service. There are many other ways possible to get a 4G Speed through your cellular network, like Routers (don’t sure about their availability in Pakistan.)

  • ji bilkul app nikal lain……. and baqi sub ko basket main phenk dain… Lol

  • Nice strategy. But there is one thing which we should never forget. That is internet backbone. Our internet backbone bandwidth is weak. So they can’t offer more than 14Mbps(lets assume. Although this is very high too). which can also be done using HSPA+ on 3G

  • Agar Yahi karna tha tuo auction ka drama kyoun sajaya. Sab ko free license dye detay. Kia hua agar woh arab nahin tuo….. Ab ZONG ko payment defer kr daini chahye jab tak PTA apna decision wapas nahin laita

  • I think there is some problem with this headline “Warid goes public…”. When we say a company going public, it means something else i-e it is the first time the general public has the ability to buy shares. A better headline should have been “Warid publicly advertises its 4G LTE Deployment Plans”.


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