DUBAI – Pakistan has started 5G trials to boost its telecom industry. The country had long struggled with the transition from a regulated state-owned monopoly to a deregulated competitive structure, budde.com.au reported on Wednesday.
The transition, and the development of the telecom sector generally, has been greatly aided by foreign investment. For this, Data centers have been established in Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad, while telcos managing data centers include Telenor, Zong, and Ufone.
Last year, Mobilink and Warid merged their operations into a single brand, Jazz, which reduced the number of mobile operators reduced from six to five.
In January 2020 the telecom regulator issued trial 5G licenses to Zong and Jazz. Despite this, the capacity of LTE infrastructure and the lack of compelling use cases for 5G suggests that network operators are not yet pressed to launch commercial services.
BuddeComm notes that the outbreak of the Coronavirus in 2020 is having a significant impact on production and supply chains globally.
In the next few years, the world’s telecoms sector to various degrees is likely to experience a downturn in mobile device production, while it may also be difficult for network operators to manage workflows when maintaining and upgrading existing infrastructure. Overall progress towards 5G may be postponed or slowed down in some countries.
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