Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) is working with mobile operators to cut eSIM prices by up to 50 percent, with the current Rs. 2,000 fee to be reduced to Rs. 1,500-1,000 to encourage adoption.
PTA Chairman Major General (R) Hafeez Ur Rehman briefed the Senate Standing Committee on Cabinet Secretariat in this regard.
The chairman said discussions with mobile operators are underway to lower the current eSIM price of Rs. 2,000,. Increased demand would eventually help bring prices down further.
The PTA chief clarified that the regulator has no role in imposing taxes on mobile phones and such tasks are the ressponsibility of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).
He informed the committee that around 25 million mobile phones are manufactured annually in Pakistan, while Samsung and Apple devices are largely imported and are subject to applicable taxes.
The PTA chairman also warned that higher taxes on mobile phones could create obstacles to the adoption and wider use of 5G services in Pakistan.
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Very strange, eSim being digital occurs no cost to service providers, so why are they charging in the 1st place. If PTA wants such adoption why it should be at consumers cost. Make it free so everyone adopts it.
Lowering the cost of something that is completely free, what a low pta can go
Exactly the right thing to do: only that it needs to be free or at the very least at par with normal sims… for a solution that is inherently free why are they treating this as some sort of a privilege…. They shud allow these immediately with online biometrics which is now possible… In US it’s completely free… don’t what these companies achieve by creating such roadblocks; they can’t be earning much by pricing them!!