The Global System for Mobile-communications (GSM) Association has cautioned Pakistan against tampering with the current terms and policies regulating telecommunication as any sudden changes will disrupt growth and stability of the sector. Its officials also asked the government to watch against its subversion by the CDMA Local Loop operators who are attempting to provide mobile services through 'fixed line licences'. In an address to delegates from the mobile phone vendors and the media here on Monday, Ricardo Tavares, the visiting Vice-President of GSM Association said that any changes in the present structure and commitments made to the investors would also harm Pakistan's image as a "credible country for investment".
Reviewing the growth of the cell phone sector in Pakistan, Tavares said that Pakistan has five million fixed line and nine million mobile connections, and he was informed of the efforts to double this number in the next 12 months.
This will need further import of direct investment in the sector and it was hoped that the figure would reach 1,200 million in the cell phone alone by the end of the current year. Percentage wise, he estimated the figure may stand at 47.5 percent by the end of coming two-and-a-half years.
This growth could be achieved if "predictable regulatory laws" rule the market as the currents efforts of Pakistan were moving forward through privatisation and licensing of new operators, he said.
Ricardo said that development of new telecom networks and services were a demanding task as these related to a capital-intensive sector. Large sums of money invested in short-term could be recovered only over a long-term investment cycle.
He said that his Association, which represents 650 mobile operators from 205 countries and territories, had brought to the notice of Pakistan government the violations of rules by LL networks.
A similar situation, he said, had prevailed in the neighbouring India and his native Brazil, but the authorities were finally able to control the situation and move forward the telecom sectors to progress.
He said that experience in the two countries had showed that the primary objective of the LL operators was not to bring competition to fixed-line market but to find a short cut in the mobile telecom market. This situation, he said, should be averted in Pakistan for the stability of the cell phone sector and also for protection of foreign investors.
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