Stakeholders target 5m broadband subscribers

[Naveed Yaseen]

ISLAMABAD: Broadband Stakeholders Group, in its first meeting, has decided that 256 kbps would be considered minimum broadband functional definition and has set a target of five million broadband subscribers for next three years.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has constituted the Broadband Stakeholders Group (BSG) in continuation of various recommendations discussed during the Broadband Open Dialogue session.

The Group’s meeting was held at the PTA headquarters. It was presided over by PTA Chairman Dr Mohammed Yaseen and attended by representatives of the Ministry of Information Technology, Universal Service Fund, Pakistan Software Houses Association, PTA, broadband service providers, cellular mobile operators, telecom vendors and academia.

In his opening remarks, Dr Mohammed Yaseen highlighted the vision behind establishing the Broadband Stakeholders Group. He said the primary objective was to improve coordination among various industry players, provide them a common platform to share their ideas and draft recommendations for improving proliferation of broadband services in the country.

The BSG members were of the view that such harmonised efforts for enhancing broadband services would deliver substantial benefits to the industry as well as the society.

The members were briefed on proposed working areas of the Group which included broadband infrastructure, broadband content and applications take-up, broadband policy and regulation framework and rural broadband connectivity. They were also briefed on the structure of the Group along with proposed timeline for its key activities.

Cisco Pakistan Country Manager Dr Aamir Matin was chosen as chairman of the Group. The meeting decided that Group members would finalise their recommendations within six months.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=161223