KARACHI: Pakistan is ranked fourth in terms of broadband Internet growth in the world, as the subscriber base of broadband Internet has been increasing rapidly with the total base crossing 170,000 in the country.
The rankings are released by Point Topic Global broadband analysis, a global research centre. According to the statistics, there are around 382. 4 million broadband subscribers worldwide by the end of August 2008 as compared with 317 million in August 2007, showing 17 percent growth.
Regional Broadband trend revealed that Western Europe has the largest share of broadband users with 26 percent followed by North America at 22 percent. South and East Asia regional is in the third place with 22 percent share.
In Pakistan operators are offering wide range of technologies like DSL, Cable, FTTH and WiMax. They have added 25,500 new broadband connections in the financial year 2007-08, which is around 150 percent increase compared to the previous financial year, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) statistics reported.
The Internet Protocol (IP) traffic through high-speed access link has become the success factor that have made rapid the transfer of online information and communication services, data, voice and video footage. The easy way of communication owing to highly competitive market of service providers has been penetrating in the country with modest acceleration in the metropolis.
At present Digital Subscriber Link (DSL) is the leading broadband service in the county with 65 percent of the market share. Major DSL providers in Pakistan are Micronet, LinkDotNet, CyberNet, MultiNet and PTCL.
Hybrid Fibre-Coaxial (HFC) is the second largest broadband technology in terms of the market share. Approximately 25 percent of the total broadband subscribers are using HFC technology. WorldCall (Pvt) Ltd is the larget provider of Cable Modem Broadband in Pakistan through its widespread HFC network in Karachi and Lahore. Wateen Telecom is another service provider which is providing HFC service in the country.
Global broadband market analysis has shown that subscribers base for FTTH technologies is increasing sharply with the emergence of innovative applications and services such as IPTV. These new services require very high access connectivity that can only be provided through FTTX technologies.
According to the PTA annual report 2008, operators have started offering FTTH and WiMax services in metropolitan cities. At present there are approximately 2,800 FTTH and 2,000 WiMax subscribers.
A significant reduction in subscription and services charges has been witnessed in the country. The DSL subscription rate has declined to $15 (nearly Rs1200) per month from $55 (above Rs 4,000) per month for 512Kbs connection.
Subsequent to the introduction of high-speed broadband access in early 2000, telecommunication companies have started offering a whole new variety of services.
