South Asia Investor Review

The Pakistan government is preparing to license three low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellite operators for space communication services in the country, according to media reports. The companies whose applications are pending include London-based OneWeb, China's Shanghai Spacecom and US headquartered Starlink.  They operate tens of thousands of small mass-produced satellites in low orbits that communicate with designated (mobile and stationary) ground stations.  Each LEO satellite circles the earth in 128 minutes or less. The critical importance of the services they offer has recently become apparent in the Ukraine War being waged in Europe and the ongoing disaster response in the areas devastated by the California wildfires. Such services are essential for any area, remote or otherwise, where the land-based infrastructure either does not exist or it has been destroyed by war or natural disasters. Representation of low, medium and geosynchronous orbits. Source: MIT Pakistan has establ...

The year 2022 was a very rough year for Pakistan. The nation was hit by devastating floods that badly affected tens of millions of people. Macroeconomic indicators took a nose dive as political instability reached new heights. In the middle of such bad news, Pakistan saw installation of thousands of kilometers of new  fiber optic  cable, inauguration of a new high bandwidth  PEACE  submarine cable connecting Karachi with Africa and Europe, and millions of new broadband subscriptions. Broadband penetration among 140 million (59% of 236 million population) Pakistanis in  the15-64 years age group reached almost 90%. This new digital infrastructure helped grow technology adoption in the country.  Internet and Mobile Phone Banking Growth in 2021-22. Source: State Bank of Pakistan Fintech:  Mobile phone banking and internet banking grew by 141.1% to Rs. 11.9 trillion while Internet banking jumped 81.1% to reach Rs10.2 trillion.  E-commerce tra...

Pakistan and East Africa Connecting Europe (PEACE) cable, a  96 TBPS (terabits per second), 15,000 km long submarine cable, is now ready for service. This brings to 10 the total number of  submarine  cables currently connecting or planned to connect Pakistan with the world: TransWorld1, Africa1 (2023), 2Africa (2023), AAE1, PEACE,  SeaMeWe3, SeaMeWe4, SeaMeWe5, SeaMeWe6 (2025) and IMEWE. PEACE cable has two landing stations in Pakistan: Karachi and Gwadar. SeaMeWe stands for Southeast Asia Middle East Western Europe, while IMEWE is India Middle East Western Europe and AAE1 Asia Africa Europe 1.  PEACE Cable. Source: Cybernet PEACE is a privately owned submarine cable that originates in Karachi,  Pakistan  and runs underwater all the way to Marseilles, France via multiple points in the continent of Africa.  It is being built as part of the Digital  Silk Road  sponsored by  China . Cybernet is the local landing and global connectivity...

High-speed broadband expansion led by PTCL has propelled Pakistan to become the fourth fastest growing broadband market in the world and the second fastest in Asia, according to a recent industry report . Serbia leads all countries surveyed with a 68% annual growth rate from Q1 2010 to Q1 2011. Thailand (67%), Belarus (50%), Pakistan (46%), and Jordan (44%) follow Serbia. India is in 14th place worldwide with a 35% annual growth rate. Leading the charge is PTCL (Pakistan Telecommunications Ltd.), Pakistan's state-owned telecommunications company, which recently launched 100 Mbps fiber to the home broadband service using Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) technology. Earlier this year PTCL rolled out bonded VDSL2 technology to deliver 50 Mbps to its existing DSL customers, five times the top speed of the nation's highest level of service at the time, at a construction cost of just $200-300 per home passed. Nearly 200,000 new subscribers signed up for broadband from the end ...

Pakistan is working on a major roll-out of bonded VDSL2 to deliver 50 Mbps, five times the top speed of the nation's highest level of service today, at a construction cost of just $200-300 per home passed. Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL), the nation’s state-controlled phone company, is deploying VDSL2 Bonding technology to provide existing digital subscriber line (DSL) customers with speeds up to 50 Mbps. The project leverages Alcatel-Lucent’s VDSL2 Bonding expertise and will be completed by the end of the second quarter of 2011, according to a report in Daily Times . VDSL2 technology is a good cost-effective option for Pakistan to upgrade existing DSL because it could serve as a platform to deliver broadband, video, and phone service, much like AT&T’s U-verse known as triple-play. VDSL2 Bonding takes two copper-based VDSL2 lines per subscriber and aggregates them—almost doubling the bandwidths available to existing customers, or expanding high-speed broadband...

Motorola announced in 2006 that Pakistan planned the world's largest WiMax roll-out. "The deployment is a milestone in the spread of WiMax, a superfast wireless technology that has a range of up to 30 miles and can deliver broadband at a theoretical maximum of 75 megabits per second. The 802.16-2004 standard, which is used in fixed WiMax networks, is being skipped in favor of a large-scale introduction of 802.16e , which was only recently agreed upon by the WiMax Forum," the 2006 announcement said. Let's examine the state of WiMax deployments and subscriber growth around the world since the Motorola announcement more than two years ago. The broadband wireless access (BWA) industry has grown significantly in the last few years due to increased availability of spectrum for commercial services and the desire to close the digital divide, according to Wimax.com . A major shift from the industry has been the migration towards standards-based products. The largest wireles...