Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on Monday announced mobile broadband (3G/4G) users’ number has been increased in the country, reaching 38.269 million by January this year against 37.574 million by December 2016. (ISLAMABAD)
It is noted that all the mobile phone operators providing mobile broadband services have got 0.695 million subscribers to their network within a month.Since January 2017 the number of mobile phone users in Pakistan reached 137.095 million from 136.489 million by December last year which is approximately an increase of around 0.606 million new users during a month.
By observing the latest statistics issued by Authority It is calculated that total subscribers of Jazz – the merged company formed from Mobilink and Warid – reached 51.534 million by January 2017. Mobilink had a subscriber base of 41.253 million by December 2016 while Warid had 10.27 million users a month ago. On the other hand Zong and Telenor subscribers reached 27.496 million and 39.586 million by January 2017 as compared to 26.929 million and 39.453 million by December, respectively. Well surprisingly Ufone subscribers decreased to 18.478 million from 18.581 by December 2016. According to PTA, Jazz 4G subscribers reached 700,486 by January 2017. Warid LTE had a subscriber’s base of 637,363 by December 2016.
If we have a look at the number of 4G users for Zong, there is a noticeable increase from 2,274,157 subscribers during December 2016 to 2,855,336 subscribers by end of January 2017.
Zong’s plan for having more than 10,500 4G cell enabled cell sites by end of 2017which is expectedly seems that Zong is ready to captured 4G market as their users will grow across the country with passage of time.
Moreover Jazz and Telenor will also get achievements in MBB 3G/4G segment. The time will reveal who is going to be leading competitor in market for 4G services.
With growing number of 4G users, operators have to look forward to install more towers in dense area to locate them. For instance, if there are 100 4G users served with a single tower, any additional customers connecting with same tower will result into inferior service quality for everyone. For maintaining quality and reliability for a wireless broadband network, operators will plan for their cell towers to keep quality of service maintained for users.
