Tag Archives: Pakistan Telecom Authority
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Pakistan Telecom Authority shows futility of raising mobile taxes
The Pakistan Telecom Authority in their December 2008 quarterly review gives the reasoning behind the government’s decision to impose high taxes on mobile phone use. To reduce the high fiscal deficits, the government had increased taxes. The increase for the telecom sector was over 40 percent; for other sectors it was only seven percent. However, the end result was unexpected, though it could have been predicted from economic theory. In the two quarters after the tax increase, the tax revenue from mobile declined.
How was the telecom market affected? In the same report, a figure shows how the subscriber base increased over time. However, the rate of growth declined in recent quarters. In 2007, the rate of growth was 9.9 percent; 2008 ended with a minus 0.3 percent growth. The average revenue per user went from USD 3.1 in the last quarter of 2007 to USD 2.58 during the last quarter of 2008.
Similarly in Sri Lanka, government has seen the mobile industry as an easy source of revenue through taxes and levies. There may be lessons for Sri Lanka from the counter-productive outcomes of Pakistan’s efforts to milk ..read more
LIRNEasia’s TRE research discussed in ITU Report
The ITU’s World Information Society Report 2007 contains the following discussion of one of LIRNEasia’s flagship products, the Telecom Regulatory Environment (TRE) assessment, in Chapter 2, Bridging the digital divide (p. 32).
“One innovative approach adopted recently in the Asian market is to try to quantify the extent of sector reform. LIRNEAsia has conducted research into the regulatory environment in six Asian economies (India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand). Their research is based on interviews rating performance in market entry, scarce resources, interconnection, prices, anticompetitive practices and universal service. Their evaluation of the regulatory environment is in general agreement with sector performance, as measured by the DOI. However, the fit is not perfect: for instance, Sri Lanka actually gained two places in the DOI, but it lagged behind, ranked fourth out of the six countries in regulatory performance.11 This suggests lags in relating changes in the regulatory environment to sector performance.”
We appreciate the care with which the report has been written, emphasizing in the reference that it is still a work in progress:
“Work to evaluate the Telecommunication Regulatory Environment by LIRNEAsia is ongoing. For interim results, see the presentation by Rohan Samarajiva et al (March 2007) at: www.lirneasia.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/telecom-regulatory-environment-rohan-samarajiva.pdf. For ongoing work on refining the methodology, see: www.lirneasia.net/2007/03/colloquium-on-refining-tre-methodology/. ”
Pakistan exceeds 60.8 million mobile SIMs in operation
At the Pakistan Telecom Authority-LIRNEasia workshop held in Islamabad on June 14, 2007, the Chairman of the PTA announced the most recent data on the telecom sector in Pakistan. Given the lack of a definition of a mobile subscriber and evidence that multiple SIMs are being used by individuals, it is LIRNEasia’s practice to refer to mobile SIMs rather than subscribers. That does not take away from the tremendous achievement of the Pakistan operators and the regulatory agency in increasing connectivity to levels above Sri Lanka and India.
Pakistan exceeds in Telecom Regulatory Environment – PakTribune Chairman PTA said that PTA had provided level playing field in different areas of tele use in the country.
He appreciated the research activities in communication sector as they motivated to perform even better. The total tele density reached 43.44 % in May 2007 as compared to 12 % in June 2005 while approximately 2.3 million subscribers were being added on cellular mobile networks each month in Pakistan, he observed.
Shahzada Malik also observed that total mobile subscribers at the end of May 2007 crossed 60.8 million marks.
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LIRNEasia presents its research in Pakistan
14 June 2007) Rohan Samarajiva, Joseph Wilson, Harsha de Silva and Tahani Iqbal presented recent research conducted by LIRNEasia at a media and stakeholder event organized by the Pakistan Telecom Authority in Islamabad today.
Following opening remarks by Chairman of PTA, Major General (R) Shahzada Alam Malik, Samarajiva and Wilson presented the new improved version of the six-country Telecom Regulatory Environment study, with emphasis on Pakistan.
de Silva discussed the results of the Teleuse @ the Bottom of the Pyramid (T@BOP) survey conducted in five countries, including Pakistan. Among other things, he discussed the disparate access to ICTs between men and women at the BOP as well as the tremendous progress made in connecting large numbers of people at the BOP in the past few years.
Iqbal presented comparative analysis of mobile prices in three countries of South Asia, using a basket methodology adapted from one used by the OECD since 1995. With these comparisons, she illustrated that Pakistan has the lowest prices for SMS and also for low-users.
From the Daily Times, Pakistan. 15 June 2007
Presentation slides: Telecom Regulatory Environment 2006 | Rohan Samarajiva & Joseph Wilson ..read more
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