Fund for growth of telecom facilities in remote areas

Ministry of Information Technology would establish Universal Service Fund (USF) for the growth of telecom facilities in remote and under-developed areas of the country.
Under telecom deregulation policy, all service providers have to allocate 1.5 percent of their gross revenue for the Fund, said secretary Information Technology and Telecommunications Khalid Saeed, while talking to APP here on Tuesday.
About procedure for USF utilisation, he said a special committee would be constituted, which would identify areas where telecom services are not available. He said that fund would be utilised to execute projects in remote areas after a fair and transparent process.
PHONE CONNECTIONS: The secretary said Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) would provide more than 0.2 million-telephone connections by end of this year in remote areas of the country.
PTCL has targeted two million connections through Wireless Local Loop (WLL) technology for next year, he said and added most of these connections would also be given in rural areas.
He said by end of this year, 50 percent villages of the country would have access to telecommunication facilities.
He said Pakistan was expecting a tremendous growth in telecom and mobile sectors, adding with the introduction of new operators considerable increase in tele-density is expected in both sectors.
To another question, he said Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) would start awarding of WLL and Long Distance International (LDI) licences (fixed line) next month.
He also expressed the hope that the two companies, which had been awarded cellular mobile licence last month, would start their operation by end of this year.
The secretary said Paktel, another cellular phone company already working in the country, would start providing GSM connections from next month. The company has recently switched over to GSM frequencies to match the competitive environment.
So the number of wireless and mobile cellular users is expected to surpass the number of fixed line users in the next two years, touching the 10 million mark.
About Ufone, he said it has already resumed the sale of connections after the recent expansion in its capacity.
He said Ufone has already started working on fourth phase of expansion plan so that sale of connections could be carried out without any interruption.