Pakistan plans to expand fiber connectivity to 7.5 million households in the next five years

Pakistan's Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunications (MoITT) recently announced the launch of a national fiber optic plan, which plans to cover 7.5 million households across the country with a fiber optic network within five years and achieve 80% fiber-to-the-station (FTTS) deployment, as reported by phoneworld on April 22. As the core part of the "Digital Economy Enhancement Project", the plan aims to increase the national average network speed to 60Mbps, laying the foundation for 5G commercialization and the popularization of the Internet of Things.

At present, Pakistan has built 211,000 kilometers of optical fiber networks, but the existing network is still difficult to support the needs of digital transformation. The New Deal focuses on three major breakthroughs: attracting more than $2 billion in private capital through public-private partnerships; Unify the national right-of-way approval standards and shorten the deployment cycle by 40%; Mandatory infrastructure sharing for operators. It is particularly noteworthy that for the first time, the policy includes the local manufacturing of optical fiber devices in the scope of incentives, which is expected to reduce import dependence by 30%.

The Minister of Telecommunications, Amin your Haq, revealed that a special management office has been set up to promote the implementation. Faced with the challenge of the digital divide between urban and rural areas, the policy has set up a universal service fund, requiring 15% of the profits of urban projects to be used to subsidize rural construction. Despite concerns about financing gaps and administrative efficiency, data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of Pakistan shows that the ICT industry is expected to grow by 7.2% and create 80,000 jobs in the first year of implementation.