3G Deployment Discussed at TeleCON 2012

SHAMROCK Conferences International organized 5^th Pakistan 2012 Telecommunication conference at Karachi.

Chairman Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) Dr. Mohammed Yaseen was the chief guest on this occasion, while Mr. Menin Rodrigues, president & Chief Executive Officer, SHAMROCK Communication (pvt) Limited, IT & telecom industry experts, stakeholders, CEOs of telecom companies, academia and media representatives attended the seminar.

The theme of the conference held in Karachi, was “Riding the wave of Technology and Consolidation”. Dr. Muhammad Yaseen, Chairman, PTA delivered the keynote address and urged the specialists to devise solutions for streamlining and enriching the Telecom infra-structure with global advancements.

Former Minister for Science and Technology – Mr. Javed Jabbar, and the Chairman of Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA) – Mr. Nadeem Elahi along with the Member Technical of PTA – Mr. Khawar Siddique Khokhar, acted as the chairpersons during the various sessions. In the opening remarks, Mr. Menin Rodrigues, President & CEO, SHAMROCK Communications (Private) Limited, welcomed the delegates from leading Telecom companies and stressed the need for continued dialogue at knowledge-based forums to pursue communications, economic and social goals.

Other prominent speakers included Mr. Riaz Asher Siddiqui, CEO of Universal Service Fund; Mr. Rehan Farooqui, Head of Managed Services, Multinet Pakistan; Mr. Furqan Qureshi, SEVP of PTCL; Mr. Saquib Ahmad of Comptel Pakistan & Afghanistan; Mr. Munib Khawaja, VP of Schneider Electric; Mr. Hamid Nawaz, COO of Supernet Limited; Ms. Shireen Naqvi, CEO of School of Leadership and Mr. Masood Karim, Country Head, Corporate & Investment Banking of Dubai Islamic Bank.

Chairman PTA, Dr. Mohammed Yaseen, in his keynotes, said that, for launching 3G technology Pakistan is facing regulatory, technology and economic challenges. Chairman said that our market driving factors are high speed integrated and interactive services for which our cellular network is merging towards the 3G and Core and access networks towards IP and NGN Platforms. So this “convergence” can bring more revenue as expected of 5 billion to the country and more over better quality of services and cheaper services to the consumers will be provided.

The regulator has to deal with maintaining QoS, Security and IP, numbering and interconnection, for these they have proposed various measures including regulators would be ready for ENUM so IP numbering will allow even more convergence and consumer rights would be maintained.

Chairman also added that, according to the economic growth of Pakistan as given by World Bank knowledge assessment, Pakistan is ranked 117^th out of 144. After these improvements, social and economic impacts on ICTs will highlight for every 10 points in Internet Penetration per 100 will be translated to 1.21 % GDP growth (World Bank). Other than this there are more business and entrepreneurship opportunities. Chairman, said that there is almost 185% growth in mobile internet users which clearly portrays the trend towards 3G.

If we focus on its applications than broadband enhancing policy comes first which can trigger the multiplier effect with the economy. Public and private partnership is introduced which has both social and economic impacts e.g. health, education, transport, smart grid power line and Gas, and mobile banking.

Increase in growth of mobile internet also shows increase in mobile broadband services which shows potential investment for mobile banking. He said that, we have set our goals like knowledge based Pakistan, E-Pakistan (E-govt, E-health etc) and more Government revenue and we are focusing on these goals but apart from technology inception there is more need of technology awareness in Pakistan like technology adoption in public sector. Our goal of seeing Pakistan as knowledge based society and economy will soon be achieved by this, Chairman further added.

The highlight of the conference was a high-level panel discussion on the topic of; “Technology aided communication and its social impact”, where experts and stakeholders discussed broad-based transformations in the cellular and IT arena, along with the expected challenges and solutions. The panel, after an absorbing input from the celebrated stalwarts like Javed Jabbar and Shireen Naqvi, and banker Masood Karim came to the conclusion that though technology was the forerunner in the quest for advancements in business and communications, it was not necessary that human values need to be changed.