The 3rd meeting of the Advisory Committee for the Auction of unsold Next Generation Mobile Services NGMS Spectrum was held on 21st February 2017 under the chairpersonship of the Minister of State for IT Mrs. Anusha Rehman. The meeting was attended by Secretary IT Mr. Rizwan Bashir Khan, Chairman PTA Syed Ismail Shah, the members of Advisory Committee, senior officials of Ministry of IT & Telecom, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Law & Justice, PTA and FAB.
Chairman PTA apprised the Advisory committee regarding different recommendations and suggestions mentioned in consultant report as well as internal PTA analysis on global price benchmark. The committee unanimously decided to have a further comparative study of benchmarking from local and regional telecom markets. Therefore, a sub-committee headed by Chairman PTA was constituted. This sub-committee will analyze the regional and global markets, which have gone through spectrum auction in recent past and on the basis of their comparative study, the sub-committee will submit its report to the main spectrum advisory committee for consideration and further necessary action.
Mrs. Anusha Rehman stressed the need for early completion of comparative analysis so that process of NGMS spectrum auction could be completed. She further said that it is the utmost priority of the government to ensure that the upcoming spectrum auction is done in a transparent, competitive and an efficient manner, as usual, to achieve optimum benefits for Pakistanis, comprising of some 60% thriving youth population.
While considering the rapidly growing broadband penetration in Pakistan, the upcoming spectrum auction has become more attractive for mobile broadband market & telecom operators, Minister added.
MoS IT reiterated the resolve of the Government that to maintain focus on accelerated digitization through the proliferation of broadband, auction of frequency spectrum will infuse more energy and will provide a new boost to the telecom activities.
