Pakistan Mobile Companies Spend over $15m on Satellite Capacities

This post was originally published by Tee Emm at Tee Emm on Pakistan Next Generation Issues.

Fellow blogger Tee Emm from Karachi wrote this interesting piece about how mobile companies in Pakistan are increasing coverage to the remote areas. Tee Emm is one of the few pioneer bloggers about technology issues in Pakistan. His analysis and commentary is interesting and refreshing.

Here’s an excerpt, read the full post here.

Telenor & Mobilink will collectively spend over 15 million dollars on satellite based capacities to reach the juiciest of the cellular markets in Pakistan. These markets are FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) and AJK (Azad Jammu Kashmir)

There are many factors that make these markets irresistible for the cellular business. These places have remained under-served for various reasons. Political reasons, difficult terrain, extreme weather. The market remains a popular telecommunication service destination because of the people from these areas have been ‘going out for work’ to every part of the country and every country of of the world. This special nature of ‘half-migration’ which is particular to the population of FATA and AJK people paints a unique equation in term of calling patterns.

Calls are made from all over Pakistan to FATA areas by the hard-working Pathan population. AJK receives majority of its call from United Kingdom where a huge number of people with Kashmiri origins reside.

Telenor has been the first one to penetrate in these markets. With no traces of fiber going out from any of the major cities of Pakistan to these areas, the only option available to the cellular operators is to use satellite capacities to connect their networks in FATA and AJK back to their national network in the rest of Pakistan. Telenor is reported to have obtained satellite capacity and services from Wateen Telecom.