LAHORE, Jan 1: The Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited earned Rs18 billion net profit during the year 2000-2001 and with a record revenue of Rs62.04 billion.

PTCL chairman Akhtar Ahmad Bajwa told a conference organized by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers here on Tuesday that the company’s revenue from domestic calls went up 13 per cent or Rs42.926 billion. It earned Rs18.958 billion through international calls, he added.

He said the number of fixed lines in service increased by 250,000 from last year, bringing total number of lines in service to 3.3 million.

Mr Bajwa was of the view that after December 2002 when the new Telecom Regulatory Regime took over, telecom business would be driven by mobile, fast internet, cable TV, multimedia and innovative value added services.

“Precisely for this reason, the PTCL is currently in the phase of both horizontal and vertical expansion process. With profit going up, the company has not only been able to employ 56,000 people but also pay handsome dividends to its shareholder,” he said.

The company has also extended distance dialling facility to 164 new stations, increasing the number of stations to 1,644 in almost whole of the country. It was able to digitalize 90 per cent of its network and complete the remaining 10 per cent task during the current year, he said. The universal internet access has been provided to 550 cities, towns and villages and optic fibre technology has been extended to over 200 stations.