The Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication has drafted ‘National Broadband Policy-2021′ targeting the contribution of digital and broadband development on the economy, to the tune of $5 billion investment and $20 billion revenue by 2025.
The draft policy also envisages up to 8 percent contribution towards the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from digital and broadband development in the next four years.
One of the objectives of the draft policy is to ensure that 100 percent of the population living in tier-2 and tier-3 cities should have access to high-speed internet (average per-user internet speeds of 50Mbps in major cities) and the facilitation of 75 percent of the internet users with digital bank accounts by 2025.
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The draft policy aims at addressing specific challenges listed below:
The policy is conceived for furthering the initiative of Digital Pakistan. It is pivotal to craft a policy vision that is user-centric, market-oriented, simple to govern, and all-inclusive, laying a strong foundation to address outstanding issues expediently and explore new opportunities in the most agile manner.
The National Broadband Policy – 2021 aims to “revitalize the state of telecommunication by accelerating the efforts for digital inclusion of every citizen in any corner of the country to gain universal access to high-speed affordable internet, enhance the use of digital space by providing equal opportunity for socio-economic wellbeing in a safe, responsible and healthy environment through evolving policy and regulatory measures required for timely and sustainable adoption of cutting edge technologies and digital infrastructure.”
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The policy objectives include:
The user-centric policy drivers, on which the foundation of the National Broadband Policy – 2021 is laid, consists of the following four major pillars. The 1st pillar will focus on the digitally divided people, who are yet to be digitally included, and would provide guidelines regarding the use of existing fiber resources, facilitating infrastructure sharing, introducing national broadband networks, and its role in the development of sustainable broadband infrastructure in public-private partnerships, reviewing the role of the USF for sustainable penetration of broadband services in unserved and underserved areas of the country further enhancing the capability for use of already laid infrastructure, further assessing the rolling spectrum strategy and offering interventions for resource optimization as well as a roadmap for the inclusion of new mobile spectrum bands, facilitating the provisioning of rights of ways, plan for commercial use of data satellite and proposal for smartphone adoption and increased local manufacturing of internet devices/terminals in Pakistan.
The 2nd pillar will help in organizing matters related to enhancing the use of the internet and for market enablement such as; a roadmap for service-based competition, review of licensing framework, outlining the future course of OTT platforms and content management, broadening the role of Ignite as research and innovation enabler, facilitating the cloud infrastructure and internet exchange points, reviewing the quality of service rules for improving user experience, developing and implementing new services and technologies in public-private partnerships, supporting with necessary infrastructure and services for enabling social services in the digital space.
The 3rd pillar will emphasize the privacy and protection of users consuming the internet, and help in creating awareness and propose a framework for securing identity and data online, ease of access for reporting criminal activity online, guidelines for constituting CERTs, standardizing and implementing user privacy. It would also propose a common operating environment and standards for internet security, environment protection support and provide a framework for standardizing new technologies and services.
The 4th and final pillar of the policy would help the user by providing a transformational roadmap for legacy services and technologies, review the role of different public sector organizations responsible for facilitating different telecommunication services, plan for adopting open source technologies and platforms, broadly identify future technologies and make provisions for early adoption, propose a broad strategy for the adoption of Internet of everything and last but not the least provide a guideline for international cooperation in ICTs.
For enhancing the implementation capacity of broadband plans and strategies through special funding instruments for aiding the economic structure based on thorough market analysis and benchmarking, the ITU Broadband Commission advocates to align National Broadband Targets with an international action plan until 2025.
With a focus on the early digital financial inclusion of the millennial population, it is anticipated that Pakistan can achieve the targets given below well before the time due to propelling digital culture in the country.
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These targets are to ensure that 100 percent population living in tier-2/3 cities should have access to high-speed internet by 2025, more than 75 percent of the metropolis, district, town, tehsil and union council should be connected with Optical Fiber Cable based fixed/wireless access network with average per-user internet speeds of 50Mbps in major cities of Pakistan by 2025.
The targets also aim that social and welfare service facilities such as schools, hospitals, courts, police/fire stations, district/union council offices should have access to broadband internet services with at least 50Mbps connectivity by 2025. The targets also aim that more than 75 percent of businesses and commercial facilities should have access to high-speed fixed and mobile broadband internet by 2025, and every internet user to have ownership of at least one latest smartphone(s) and/or device(s).
To introduce the next wave of fixed and mobile services and ensure coverage in 25 percent of the cities in Pakistan by 2025; and another 75 percent of cities/towns by 2030; while accommodating technological evolution and resource optimization on the go, to facilitate 75 percent of internet users with digital bank accounts by 2025; develop and operationalize at least five carrier-neutral Internet Exchange Points and cloud data centers in public-private partnerships by 2030.