Islamabad:
Pakistan cannot achieve his goal of improving information technology-based exports to $ 25 billion in five years if the spectrum auction is delayed by another two years, a regional leader of the global mobile phone operator’s body said Monday while calling on the government to remove legal obstacles.
Julian Gorman, head of Asia Pacific of Global System for Mobile Communications (GSMA), the representative body of mobile phone operators, on Monday informed the government’s spectrum auction advice on prospects and challenges for the upcoming auction.
Pakistan has a quite admirable digital vision, a cashless society that gets people connected and $ 25 billion in exports by 2030, but all this cannot be achieved without first implementing the spectrum auction, Gorman said after the meeting while they briefed journalists.
IT exports are dependent on reliable and good quality connection, he added.
GSMA and the local telecom operators informed the committee days after Jazz complained that ongoing delays at the spectrum auction hurt both customers and finances. But the Minister of Information Technology, Shaza Fatima Khawaja, recently said the main reason for the delay in the 5G Spectrum Auction was ongoing litigation and uncertainty about Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) -TeLenor-Fusion.
GSMA recently conducted an analysis to estimate the cost of the country and lost GDP if the spectrum allocation does not move on this year, Gorman said. He added that if it was delayed by another two years, costs for the country would be $ 1.8 billion. If the delay is five years, costs will be close to $ 5 billion, he added.
GSMA recommended to the advisory committee that if the spectrum is only made available from 2027 due to high reserve prices and other litigation, 4G network improvements will slow down and 5G rolling will be delayed by two years.
It suggested to resolve all outstanding legal, legislative and fiscal issues, set the reserve prices conservatively, lower than previous auctions and denote spectrum fees in local currency instead of US dollars to reduce risks from currency fluctuations.
The mobile operators have also required payment flexibility with installment options and affordable advance fees together with deduction costs for licensing obligations from spectrum fees to facilitate operators’ financial burden.
More importantly, they have asked for a clear spectrum card to reduce uncertainty and support network planning.
Gorman said the last spectrum allocation was about four years ago, and in the previous auction a lot of spectrum remained unsold, which was a negative sign for both industry and investors.
“It is important that Spectrum is awarded on reasonable terms so that the industry can use it,” Gorman said, calling on the government to review his policy of charging dollar -based spectrum prices and also collecting interest on payments in installments.
The cost of spectrum for the mobile industry is about twice the regional average, and it accounts for approx. 20% of revenue, he added. He said that rupeeustability in the past also increased the cost of mobile phone operators.
The industry does not have the capacity to invest at the levels required to create networks that will support the government’s digital vision.
He said that 5G and next generation connection are different from what they used to be. Even in high-value markets, where auctions that once picked up $ 40 billion have now fallen by 10 to 20 times, the GSMA regional head said.
He emphasized that Pakistan should not be brought away with benchmarks that were put many years ago in another era, with a different amount of spectrum and scale of networks. “Our recommendation is to massively reduce the price of enabling investment in the next generation,” he added.
“The government has ambitions to be a cashless economy, and Raast is about immediate payments. How can you have immediate low -quality broadband payments? It’s not possible,” Gorman said.
To a question, he said GSMA has recommended removing the legal obstacles to ensure a timely auction takes place. The Law of Law, who also attended the advisory committee meeting, was quite positive and assured that the government would try to solve these issues, Gorman said.
The question is whether the state wants it badly enough for the people. If so, it would have to do it differently, he added.
Gorman said the government will have to tackle the trial as well as make a decision on the merger of Telenor and Ufone.
