By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s telecom regulator on Thursday announced plans to auction spectrum for 5G services in March, a step aimed at easing network congestion and boosting Internet speeds in a country where demand has outpaced available bandwidth.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said the auction for Next Generation Mobile Services/5G would take place on March 10, after regulatory coordination and consultations with stakeholders to ensure transparency and broad participation. “The confirmed timeline provides telecom operators and prospective bidders with adequate preparation time and reflects PTA’s commitment to facilitating optimal participation while ensuring full alignment with procedural and regulatory requirements,” the authority said in a statement.
It encouraged interested parties to consult the information memorandum for NGMS/5G in Pakistan and monitor updates on its website.
The announcement comes amid growing complaints from users and businesses about sluggish Internet speeds and outages, as Pakistan’s limited spectrum allocation strains to support a population exceeding 240 million.
Pakistan currently has more than 130 million broadband connections, but access is uneven across urban and rural areas, even as the country’s information technology sector expands rapidly. IT exports hit a record $3.8 billion in the fiscal year 2024-25, up 18 percent from $3.2 billion the previous year, according to data from the Pakistan Software Export Board.
Information Technology Minister Shaza Fatima Khawaja said last month that Pakistan’s Internet service quality lagged behind international and regional benchmarks, largely because of insufficient spectrum. Pakistani users rely on about 274 MHz of spectrum, compared with around 600 MHz in Bangladesh, leading to severe congestion, she told a news conference on Dec. 23. She compared the situation to “trying to run eight lanes of traffic through two lanes,” adding that the upcoming auction would help enhance Internet services nationwide.
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