Pakistan expected to have 5G by 2020, State Minister of IT

The development of Information Technology was the primary focus of the inaugural session of a five-day Roundtable Collaborative Regulation Conference for Smart Digital Societies. Anusha Rahman, the State Minister for Information Technology said that Pakistani consumers would have access to the complete set of broadband services by 2018.

She also stated that Pakistan will be the first country in the world to adopt an effective Over-The-Top (OTT) framework for Information Technology. Through the OTT framework, broadband consumers in Pakistan would be directly accessing content from third parties rather than from Internet Service Providers (ISPs). In the OTT framework, the ISP is simply responsible for the transportation of data packets over the internet only.

Anusha further said that she hopes that 5G technology will be introduced in Pakistan by 2020. She added that the government’s primary focus right now was on women empowerment and the development of remote access areas through the use of technology.

This year’s Roundtable Regulation Conference had delegates from a cumulative total of 23 countries that include China, Japan, and Thailand among others. The conference is revolving around issues that pertain to cyber security, mobile banking, telecommunication, and access to advanced telecom services (such as 5G). The objective is to provide a platform for Information Technology (IT) regulators in the Asia-Pacific region to discuss modern technologies and how they can be utilized.

According to Anusha, privacy and consumer rights were the biggest challenges for the IT regulators at the conference. She said that this conference would help reduce the threat posed by these challenges.

Dr. Syed Islamil Shah, the chairman of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), said that this conference would provide an opportunity for increased professional and regional connectivity between the participating countries.

Source – Nation