Karachi: Chairman Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) Dr. Mohammad Yaseen has said that unregistered SIMs will be blocked by 17^th May 2011and SIMs verification process through “668 Information System” is in full swing. He was talking at Connect ICT Forum 2011 at Karachi Expo Centre organized in concurrence with the 6^th edition of Information & Communication Technology Exhibition- Connect 2011 today.  IT & telecom industry experts, academia and media men also attended the Forum.

Dr. Muhammad Yaseen said that this is final stage of correction of SIM data and operators are receiving 4 Lac applications daily in this regard. Responding to a query by   journalists, Chairman PTA said that strategy is being evolved to tackle IMEI issue and we are waiting for government directives. He said that there is no type approval of mobile sets which is causing problems and sets having fake IMEIs will be banned in the market.

Mobile Tele-density has increased to 66.8% percent with 5% annual growth because of efforts to advance telecommunication sector through liberalized policies he added. Broadband is considered as the next big thing to offer a unifying services platform for three converging industrial sectors: computing, communications and broadcasting. Encouraging developments are happening in this sector since mid-2007, Pakistan has emerged as a lucrative market for broadband service providers owing to the huge potential it offers especially in the wireless broadband market. We observed a profound evolution of broadband technologies over the years with the present subscription base reaching 1.2 million from 0.1 million in 2007.

Chairman PTA also highlighted the statistics regarding broadband market. He said that Broad Band Market of Asia is expected to reach 605 billion USD by 2011; the global BOP market for ICT is $30.5 billion; the amount of mobile payment transaction is expected to reach 300 Billion USD by 2013. He said that government and private sector need to work together to foster a new culture. We at PTA will continue to provide the necessary support to Industry and the other stakeholders.

The pace of technological advancement is accelerating and ICT is increasingly becoming a ubiquitous and intrinsic part of people’s behaviors and social networks as well as of business practices,  government activities and service provision. We expect transformations 2.0 to continue to move human progress forward by further leveraging ICT’s positive social, political, and economic impact on governments, enterprise, and civil society alike, he further added.

On this occasion Country Head, Pakistan & South Asia, Communications Oracle Corporation Singapore Mr. Asif Ijaz, Country Director Pre-sales Pakistan, Afghanistan & Iran Alcatel- Lucent Pakistan ltd Mr. Fouz Sattar, CEO TEXPO UAE & Pakistan Dr. Sarfraz Alam and CEO Augere Pakistan Mr. Mobashar Naqvi also made presentations. Chief Guest distributed shields among the key participants. The objectives of the seminar were to offer an interactive platform with top level networking opportunities. Earlier Chairman PTA also visited the ICT Exhibition.

 

Zafar Ullah Mallah

Media Consultant