A formal launching ceremony of the system was held today at PTA Headquarters. During the occasion Mr. Naguibullah Malik, Secretary (IT) handed over the software application along with its operating manual to Mr. Abdur Rauf Chaudhry, Secretary (Education). The application was presented to Ministry of Education for onward provision to the among public-sector educational institutions. Both the secretaries also exchanged PTA souvenir with each other. 

This software would help recipient to be aware of events like lecture venue, coursework deadlines, result announcements, attendance details and upcoming school functions or meetings. Since majority of students and parents nowadays own mobile phones and most of them are familiar with sending and receiving SMS text messages, this solution for information dissemination introduced by PTA in educational institutions of Pakistan through SMS would prove to be an important information and communication source.

It may be mentioned that PTA was engaged in proliferation of mobile-based applications to facilitate information-based society culture in Pakistan. Today the mobile usage in Pakistan is growing exponentially, both in terms of number of users and the amount of activity.

Pakistan, through the Ministry of Education and various provincial departments, has been focusing on using ICTs in accordance with the millennium development goal of ‘Education for all’.

Talking on the occasion Secretary IT &T appreciated the efforts under-taken at PTA for proliferation of ICT-based solutions in the country. He endorsed the Chairman PTA’s efforts for enhancing ICT infrastructure and services. Secretary Education also commended the initiative and expressed his gratitude to Secretary (IT) and Chairman PTA for developing a valuable solution for educational institutions in Pakistan. Dr. Muhammad Yaseen, Chairman PTA highlighted various ICT projects being carried out at PTA.

Broadband is considered as a key enabler for enhancing social and economic productivity of a country. Broadband is critical to the delivery of private sector services and applications in commerce, telecommunication and banking. Furthermore it is also indispensable for public sector services and applications in education, health, community and other key areas. Primary vision behind formulation of BSG was to establish a group of experts who could plan out essential suggestions for growth and proliferation of Broadband.

Key agenda of the second BSG meeting was to discuss the recently prepared first draft report of BSG. The report targets four major areas of broadband development along with necessary recommendations for improvement. The areas encompass Broadband Infrastructure & Next Generation Broadband, Broadband Policy & Regulation Framework, Content & Application Take-up and Rural Broadband Connectivity.

During his opening remarks Chairman PTA congratulated the members upon completion of an all-inclusive first draft report. He endorsed the efforts put in by BSG for coming up with a set of suggestions both for the regulator and the policy makers. Chairman highlighted his vision of enabling broadband growth in every sector of the country. He emphasized on future roadmap and desired the BSG members to work on some realistic subscribers targets for next two years. Chairman PTA also accentuated the importance of content and applications for proliferation of broadband services. He shared few of the latest initiatives up-taken by ICT Directorate at PTA regarding the growth of mobile-based ICT applications in the country.

BSG members discussed the first draft report and suggested necessary improvements required before releasing the final recommendations report. The members also appreciated PTA for providing a common platform to industry experts for joining their thoughts on improvement of broadband considered as a pivotal sector for enhancing productivity.

This particular illegal gateway exchange was operational in a posh locality of F – 7/2, Islamabad and was being operated by Pakistani and foreign nationals. The highly professional team of PTA was able to recover a number of gateways and machines being used to bypass the legal route. Resultantly, it is estimated that this illegal facility alone has incurred loss up to Rs 24 crore in less than four months.

Chairman PTA Dr. Mohammed Yaseen said that PTA will continue to take action against such unlawful activities. He warned all those involved in illegal / grey telecom traffic to stop such activities, otherwise strict action will be initiated against the culprits as per the law.

This arrangement will bring cost efficiency vis-à-vis international IP bandwidth by restricting local internet traffic within the country. Besides that, it will also provide routing efficiency especially in accessing the locally hosted websites. Considering as a major step towards Information Communication Technologies (ICT) revolution, the arrangement will also have an indirect impact on proliferation of local internet content development in the country.

In continuation to its role as an industry facilitator, PTA was mutually working with PTCL and TWA for establishment of Local Internet Exchange Point(s) in the country. In this regard a number of discussions and deliberations were carried out by PTA and necessary solutions for implementation of said peering arrangements were conversed.

Chairman PTA, Dr. Mohammed Yaseen in his remarks appreciated the efforts of the ICT Directorate of PTA, PTCL and TWA for working on the project and said that this initiative would bring a remarkable effect on Internet industry of Pakistan. The Chairman also highlighted that the ICT Directorate at PTA has embarked on several other projects that would soon bring fruitful benefits and productive results for the consumers and the industry. PTCL and TWA valued PTA’s exertions and ensured their continuous corporation for the betterment of Internet industry.

It may be noted that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) of Pakistan seek international Internet connectivity through PTCL and TWA. The domestic Internet traffic originated by ISPs of the country is being routed through international hops as currently no mutual peering points exist in Pakistan. The present routing scenario is resulting in unnecessary delay for the local internet traffic, burden on International Internet links and increase in average per bit delivery cost of ISPs. With this agreement, all such issues will be addressed and local internet traffic will be fastest.

The ceremony was presided over by Chairman PTA, Dr. Mohammed Yaseen while Member (Finance), Syed Nasrul Karim Ghaznavi, Member (Technical) Dr. Khawar Siddique Khokhar, senior officers of the Authority and representatives of PTCL and Wateen were also present on this occasion.

The issuance of WLL licenses would augment the efforts of government to provide enhanced and affordable telecom services to the people of the AJ & K and NAs. This step is likely to capture huge investment in 3 Telecom Regions (TR) including Mirpur, Muzaffarabad and Northern Areas.

While speaking on this occasion, Chairman PTA said that earlier there was only one telecom operator in AJ&K and NAs but when competition was introduced and new operators started their services, all segments of the sector witnessed rapid growth. With a teledensity figure of 3.59% in the Year 2005-06, the region was lagging far behind from the rest of the country in terms of telecommunication services. Two years after the deregulation in the area, the teledensity of AJ&K and NAs today stands at 37.46%.  Mobile subscribers figure of 0.167 Million of 2005-06 has now jumped to 1.84 Million subscribers.

The Chairman said that WLL is a wireless technology, which best suits to the environments in AJ&K and NAs as the service had proved very useful in other far-flung areas of the country.  He said that the people of low income groups in rural areas would greatly benefit from this service.  He said PTA would extend full cooperation to the telecom operators in the successful operation of their business.

These licenses were awarded on the basis of a bidding conducted by PTA in November last year. In the bidding of spectrum in 3.5 GHz for Mirpur (TR-1) one block was taken by PTCL at the highest bid of Rs.10 million while other was withdrawn because there was no second bidder for the TR-1. For Muzaffarabad (TR-2) PTCL gave the highest bid of Rs. 4 million followed by Wateen which matched the price. For Northern Areas (TR-3) Wateen offered highest bid of Rs. 4 million and second block went to PTCL for the same price. In total 26 million rupees were collected against the auction price of 5 WLL licenses in 3 regions.