Further 3G/4G Auction May Get delayed

As we have previously seen that the process of auction was not that much easy, similarly this time as well PTA is trying its best to complete the left over auction of 3G & 4G. For this purpose PTA has advertised sometime back to hire consultants to lead the auction campaign and run all the marketing. PTA has advertised to hire two types of Consultants/ Consultancy Firms:

• Due_Diligence Consultants: The Consultants of international repute will survey market and provide fare value of the market assessment in order to guide PTA for auction plans.
• Marketing Consultants: The Consulting Firm will do marketing to attract the new investments in the spectrum for Next Generation Mobile Services (NGMS).

In order to complete the process successfully, PTA will surely have to perform its best so that consumers may use fastest internet as soon as possible. PTA will also want to make sure that the whole process works smoothly taking into confidence the existing stakeholders mainly cellular operators. some of them have shown interest to acquire additional spectrum.

Further 3G/4G Auction May Get delayed

The operators says that as 27.5 million activated SIMs were de-activated in the current fiscal year of 2014-2015, therefore they could did not manage their revenues, hence are not ready for further planned auction of 3G/4G. Now the operators are again promoting their 3G/4G services in order to increase their subscriber’s base. According to their estimations they will earn more than 65 billion rupees in the next fiscal year 2015-2016, and will only go for auction if the estimated amount is realised.

The delayed auction is itself a huge set back for all telecom operators and for Pakistan under Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA). The CMOs worked on the registration of SIMs issued according to Bio-metric Verification in order to play their part along with the government to counter terrorism. This has decreased the activated SIMs amount to 111 million from 139 million, by de-activating 27.5 million activated SIMs as a National Action Plan (NAP).

This left over spectrum auction is a highly awaited one in Pakistan; as we have witnessed significance of already launched 3G & 4G services as extremely beneficial for both the industry and public as well. So keeping our fingers crossed lets hope that PTA announces the auction soon and we see operators offer more faster internet  service!