Broadband subscribers crossing 62 million mark

ISLAMABAD: The number of broadband users including 3G and 4G in the country has crossed 62 million by end of September 2018, showing a reasonable growth with each passing month.

Statistics issued by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) have shown on Sunday that major contributors of this growth are 3G and 4G mobile internet subscribers, which clocked in at around 59.485 million by the end of September this year.

On the other hand, as per the PTA statistics, the number of DSL subscribers stood at around 1.556 million, HFC 60006 users, Wimax 67261 users, FTTH 73858 users, EvDO 365330 users while the users of 3G/4G LTE (fixed) users were calculated to be 24311.

The number of mobile phone users has reached 152 million by September 2018, as compared to 151.089 million by end of August which registered an increase of around one million during the period under review.

Jazz’s total count for 3G users stood at 14.85 million by September 2018. Jazz 4G user numbers jumped from 5.077 million by August 2018 to 5.6 million by September 2018.

Zong 3G subscribers decreased to 8.886 million by September 2018, down from 9.034 million in August 2018, while the number of 4G users jumped from 8.131 by August to 8.52 by September 2018.

The number of 3G users of Telenor which were 10.21 million in August 2018 decreased to 9.95 million by September 2018. The number of 4G users jumped from 3.59 million in August 2018 to 3.84 by September 2018.

Ufone 3G users are showing an increasing trend on its network and reached 7.85 million by September 2018 from 7.5 million users by August this year.

Tele-density for cellular mobile phone reached 73.24 per cent and for broadband subscribers, it reached 28.73 per cent by September this year.

Analysts say the portable mobile broadband devices are one of the main drivers of growth in 3G/4G subscription and this trend is likely to gain momentum in the days to come.

Meanwhile, the advent of the smartphone and wireless technologies in the country during last few years have led to the creation of numerous innovative services and applications that are being used to ensure benefits for different kinds of users.

This is smartphone through which spreading online information to people regarding education, technologies, agriculture and other domains have become simple and fast.

The mobile broadband like 3G and 4G are flourishing amid mobile broadband expansion.

As per the report of GSMA, by the year 2020, a whopping 90 per cent of Pakistani population will have access to 3G networks while an impressive 80 per cent population will have access to 4G. Obviously, mobile broadband growth means flourishment of the smartphone.

The mobile broadband users growth in Pakistan is expected to touch 8 per cent mark in the coming years as the country would have more than 100 million smartphones by 2020.