Telecom industry hinges on broadband

Broadband is finally taking off in Pakistan. In just the last six months, the industry sold a little more than 0.25 million subscriptions, taking the total subscribers base to around 0.7 million users.
Rising appetite for broadband technology has ranked Pakistan as the worlds tenth fastest growing market.
Specifically, in the DSL segment, the country is ranked as the second fastest growing economy in South and East Asia, according to a latest report by Point Topic - a UK-based broadband statistics provider.
Although, broadband has many advantages over traditional dialup system, the credit for phenomenal growth cannot be given to technology alone.
In essence, it is attributed to telecom operators increasing interest in this segment as the market for other products, like landline and mobile phone, is nearly saturated.
The quest to capture a larger chunk of market in this niche has brought all broadband operators on warpath with each other - using aggressive marketing tactics and introducing catchy packages.
PTCLs recently announced plans to expand its network of broadband users to over three million, and to maintain 70 percent market share in the next five years, point in the same direction.
The industry size projected by PTCL seems quite rational.
First and foremost, greater advantages over dialup technology will help them capture quite a sizable chunk of dialup subscribers, which are around 3.7 million at the moment. Likewise, clientele reach can also be expanded to rural areas given that wireless technology has significant cost advantages over wired access.
Being the largest telecom operator, PTCL also has significant advantages over other operators, which have relatively smaller infrastructure.
PTCLs existing customer base, which by the ways is huge, and diversified sales portfolio will make it easier to cross-sell broadband packages. Moreover, the company can easily increase its broadband users through its fixed lines network.
On the flip side, however, high subscription charges can be a major barrier to broad bands growth story. According to International Telecommunication Union, broadband price in Pakistan, as a percentage of Gross National Income, is relatively higher that reflects lower affordability owing to low GNI.
Expansion in broadband technology also depends on the availability of personal computers to household at affordable prices. At present, only 8 percent of Pakistani households own personal computers, a number that needs to grow by leaps and bound if broadband has to make it mark.