Warid Beats Expectations by Grabbing Over 50K LTE Users

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As you might have read about the news that Pakistan won a Global Mobile Award in Barcelona earlier this week, for successfully auctioning spectrum for 3G and 4G services in Pakistan, but one of ProPakistani reader thinks that Warid Telecom should be given a separate award for launching 4G LTE services without spending a single penny on 4G spectrum and yet they successfully launched the service in six cities of Pakistan.

This doesn’t end here as Warid surprised the market by managing to have grabbed over 50,000 LTE users with-in a month of its commercial launch. That’s almost 9 times of Zong’s 4G customers till the end of January 2015.

Interestingly, as some had feared, Warid managed to maintain its undisputed and proven superiority of network quality, for both voice and data users.

For those who aren’t aware, Warid didn’t buy additional spectrum for its LTE services and instead spared some spectrum from its 2G network and consumed it for LTE operations.

However, it merits mentioning here that this was possible only because Warid had lesser number of customers. For a reference, Warid had only one third customers of what Mobilink had while the spectrum size of both operators was same, which means Warid could easily afford to spare some spectrum for LTE operators, which it did.

Additionally, in order to offer better data experience that will also save spectrum, Warid has contracted SpiderCloud for small cell deployment. Through this arrangement, company will be able to serve the data needs of its customers through power full small cells that are reported to have achieved 34 Mb/s per radio node on 5MHz spectrum, which is far higher than what other telco can deliver on 3G/4G/LTE.

We know that Warid is already planning for WiFi offloading, that will further enhance and optimize the utilization of spectrum available to Warid.

And no doubt they can buy additional spectrum during the next auction (for which PTA has already started to evaluate the market and opportunities) to tap the growing spectrum needs.

All in all, Warid has tuned out to be a clear winner, with good number of LTE subscriptions and a doable plan and a strategy that has stunned the telecom experts locally and abroad.

Tech and telecom reporter for over 15 years


  • But its coverage rate in more cities is equal to Misbah’s batting rate..:)

  • Where are all the haters now? O 4G cant be successful in PK. People don’t have handsets all all other nonsense. Anyway I used both Waird and Zong LTE. Let me tell you guys Zong is light years ahead when it come to the LTE speed and coverage

    • “Zong is light years ahead when it come to the LTE speed and coverage”

      You must be kidding … Or are you a Zong-Kong?

      • Really guyz Im using Zong 4G wingle (at 4G signal strength 40% ) I get 10 Mbps almost everytime.. Currently used 4G in Rahim Yar Khan and Isb Chak Shahzad… Its really way better than other Isps..

    • I’ll second you on this cuz I’ve used both of these. . .Zong’s 3g was capable enough to offer what warid is offering on it’s 4g

    • I agree …i also used both zong LTE and Warid LTE and zongs speed and signals were stronger than warid LTE…zong is the best

  • I doubt if all these 50K customers even have LTE available in their areas. Many people changed their sims to LTE sims, yet LTE converge is still not available in their areas. I am myself one such customer.
    LTE roll-out for both Warid and Zong seems to have stalled for the past 3 months. No new areas have been added to coverage maps.

  • In my opinion if they considered to get 3G license, they could manage to get more customers than others and there wasn’t a compromise on spectrum as well. Anyway, best of luck for future plans Warid.

    • at least they should have gone for 5mhz 3g license if they were not able to spend money on 10mhz

  • Warid would have grabbed highest number of 3G users (I believe) had they participated in auction.

    • but by participating in the auction, they would spend all their money in only getting the license. Now that they have planned for 4g with their existing spectrum; they can spend all that money on improving their infrastructure which they would have had spent on the auction. As other posts have mentioned, this is a smart play by Warid.

      • Although this is a smart move but a limitation would be reached. Should the number of subscribers on Warid network increases, quality of the services would go down. Now they should acquire 4G license to gain more spectrum, which the government is planning to auction within 90 days. In this way, their quality of service would go more better and more subscribers and possibly more revenue.

  • Well done Warid! Being a Warid LTE user & having tried 3G/4G services of all other operators, all I can say is Warid you rock! Warid coverage is unparalleled in atleast Lahore, Rawalpindi & Islamabad, where i’ve used Warid LTE. For other operators all I can say is that they are in race for covering whole of Pakistan with no consideration for perfecting their coverage in already covered areas! With fluctuating 3G/4G signals or pathetic speed, coupled with the most unfriendly customer service & sleeping PTA contend with the license fees & busy in earning awards, this is the state of affairs of other large Pakistani telecom operators!

  • zong has the best 3g network in Karachi.
    Reason: i have never seen zong network changing from H+ to H or 3g, where as all other operators network keep changing from H+ to H, 3g.
    Zong speed is also best 5mbps any time of day.

    • Zong employee your network is not even stable to H+ and shuffles to H after every 15 seconds.

      • Not the case with me, always stays at h+ and with the mobile data always on, my phone doesn’t eats up battery!

  • speed varies area to area..So Far I experienced zong only, they dont even provide the voice coverage completely in lahore but the areas which are covered with voice and Data services, they have good speed of internet…yet All Telcos are in phase of upgrading their equipment which definitely take some time……hoping for best :-)

  • Warid is a third class company due to its internal Systems. A bureaucracy is running warid since its birth.
    Warid cannot do that, its only possible due to the new hiring which Warid picked from PTCL

    • Yeah agreed… Jab se Warid bani hai, ro rahi hai k paise nhi hain blahblahblah…. Employees alag ehsaas e kamtari k shikar rehte hain other companies k muqablay mei :P… aur har waqt sale out hone ya lay off krne ki news chalti rehti hain… Sheikh waqaee kanjoos hotay hai chahye Pakistani ho ya Arbi :P :D

  • Warid, the best network with the perfect call quality and a consistent speed of 20mb on LTE. i used zong and it sux with signal problems and all. i live in lahore .

    • Both Zong’s and Warid’s sim will work on it…
      The reason is that it supports 1800 mhz for lte.. so yeah, both warid and zong have 1800 mhz lte; so both will work…


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