In the past few years Pakistan Telecom Industry has attracted billions of foreign direct investment. But now the telecom companies are concerned about the license renewal process of telecom operators.
Few months ago Federal government also established a committee to evaluate the issue of license renewal and awarding of additional spectrums. But what are main concerns of the telecom industries and what solutions can provide a better renewal process for license.
Renewal price is one of the biggest concerns for the cellular mobile operators in Pakistan. There are many issues regarding renewal fees which can be considered such as:
- Cellular mobile operators believe that the renewal fees should be in Rupees as their revenues in Pakistan is in local currency so the license fee should also be in the local currency of the country.
- What that price should be is an important issue which requires consultation with all stake holders before fixing the renewal fees. Regarding spectrum prices many believe that the price should be enough to generate amounts necessary to support government management and actions.
- The spectrum price can consists of spectrum access fee and ongoing spectrum usage fees, the spectrum usage fee should be decided after consultation from CMOs.
Rationalization of Spectrums is another issue which Pakistan Telecommunication Authority needs to resolve. Networks such as CMPak (Zong) have been experiencing interference due to cross-border spillover.
Similarly due to fragmentation of spectrum operators are unable to fully utilize it such as after merger of Mobilink & Warid merger it was a bearer to efficient utilization. This reflects that the new license renewal policy requires defragmentation of spectrum.
Other matters that require consultation and consideration by government includes service neutrality of license, possibility of assigning the license for spectrum to secondary market and reduction in regularity fees.
