ISLAMABAD, April 12: Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) is taking measures to bring in third generation cellular mobile technology and the preparatory work will be completed within six to eight months.

This was stated by the Chairman PTA Maj-Gen (Retd) Shahzada Alam Malik while addressing a seminar on ‘Telecom Networks Transformation‘ as the chief guest. The seminar was arranged by Tellabs and Tria Pakistan.

The chairman said that teledensity was increasing fast in the country and it has jumped to 22 per cent whereas cellular mobile subscriber base has touched the figure of 27 million by the end of this March. PTA was also emphasising on the spread of Wireless Local (WLL) service and so far 600,000 people have subscribed to this comparatively new service, he added.

He said that Pakistan had made progress in the telecom sector and introduced new players casting positive impact on all range of telecom services. He said that telecommunication technology was changing rapidly and they experienced something new everyday to keep pace with it. “We are encouraging all telecom operators so that they can introduce new technologies in Pakistan.”

He said that PTA was also working to facilitate the improvement of broadband services in Pakistan. The prices would also come down soon, he hoped.

The Chairman informed the gathering that with the introduction of 3G mobile technology, Pakistani consumers would have enhanced data services.

Earlier, Furrukh Khan, Director Tria Pakistan, Fady Rizkallah Regional Director and Sam Halabi, Director, Tellabs, also spoke in detail about the transformation and convergence of technologies.