Pakistan passed the 100 million subscriber milestone in Oct 2010, with five operators fighting for the market share day in & day out, but still waiting for the introduction of 3G WCDMA technology (High Internet Speed Mobile Access with International Roaming), to take the telecoms market to the much needed next level.
The 3G Licenses auctioned last year in our neighboring country fetched multi billion dollars, in license fee in addition to a similar amount of foreign direct investments, creating a spree of jobs for not only the highly educated, but also for the less educated skilled hands, working on things like tower construction.
The question remains why we are shying away from this golden opportunity, to give the much needed life saving shot to our economy?
May be the reason lies in the situation, where the current operators are shying away from the investments that they would have to make, when the licenses are made available and are just keeping a few individuals at the right places “happy”, so that it is deferred, as long as they wish.
With the 3G services available in most of the countries of South Asia and even Africa, why we are being deprived of the technological and economical benefits and playing the catch up game?
The 3G License or Spectrum auction, which is just like selling “air” is the easiest way to slightly mitigate the ever increasing unemployment rate in the country. Our peoples representatives in the both the houses should take this up seriously, to expedite the ever delayed process.
