Pakistan Government has planned to issue first licences for 3G (third generation) mobile telecom services in October and the government is hopeful that it will generate nearly 1 billion dollars through an auctions.
Pakistan is the fifth-largest cellular market in Asia — behind China, India, Indonesia and Japan.
Pakistan has more than 107 million mobile users. Mobilink has the highest number of subscribers 32.96 million and Telenor is at second with
26.06 million subscribers.
It is expected that the Economic Coordination Committee will approve the auction in the first week of August and auctions will be held in late October/
The number of licences to be issued would depend on the availability of 3G spectrum. For instance, if we have 30 MHz, it could be three licences of 10 MHz each. If we have 20 MHz, it will be two licences.