PTA had earlier issued orders to cellular companies to ban all unverified SIMs by 17th of May.
Chairman PTA has once again stressed on the issue, while he was talking at Connect ICT Forum 2011 at Karachi Expo Centre organized in concurrence with the 6th edition of Information & Communication Technology Exhibition- Connect 2011 today. IT & telecom industry experts, academia and media men also attended the Forum.
Mobile operators connect with their registered subscribers by calls and SMSes to get their SIM verified with their respective CNICs in this regard. Also, hundreds of subscribers inquire about their connection through PTA website as it is receiving daily 400,000 hits now a days.
Yaseen ruled out that any contraction of subscribers will take place as a result of regulatory campaign, claiming that all subscribers are genuine and there will be no decrease of subscribers base and no loss to mobile operators consequently.
This is phase-3 of our campaign because the authority could not clean all data at once, there must be IT solution of registration of SIM and rectification of data and PTA along with operators have done it in the past and blocked 16.3 million SIMs without name, PTA chairman said.
He said the PTA is chalking out to provide IMEI numbers to handset importers, however, authority will act according to the policy to be framed by the ministry and government.
PTA has submitted its input to IT Ministry in which we have suggested two point policy. First, to impose ban on these handsets at Customs stage where IMEI numbers are not mentioned, and second, impose a ban on the sale of such phones in local markets, he said.
Mobile Tele-density has increased to 66.8% percent with 5% annual growth because of efforts to advance telecommunication sector through liberalized policies he added. Broadband is considered as the next big thing to offer a unifying services platform for three converging industrial sectors: computing, communications and broadcasting.
Encouraging developments are happening in this sector since mid-2007, Pakistan has emerged as a lucrative market for broadband service providers owing to the huge potential it offers especially in the wireless broadband market.
We observed a profound evolution of broadband technologies over the years with the present subscription base reaching 1.2 million from 0.1 million in 2007.
Chairman PTA also highlighted the statistics regarding broadband market. He said that Broad Band Market of Asia is expected to reach 605 billion USD by 2011; the global BOP market for ICT is $30.5 billion; the amount of mobile payment transaction is expected to reach 300 Billion USD by 2013.
He said that government and private sector need to work together to foster a new culture. We at PTA will continue to provide the necessary support to Industry and the other stakeholders.
The pace of technological advancement is accelerating and ICT is increasingly becoming a ubiquitous and intrinsic part of people’s behaviors and social networks as well as of business practices, government activities and service provision. We expect transformations 2.0 to continue to move human progress forward by further leveraging ICT’s positive social, political, and economic impact on governments, enterprise, and civil society alike, he further added.
