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It is indeed great news (http://www.usf.org.pk/newsdescription.aspx?122 ) that the Government has approved release of Rupees Five billion (equal to US$ Fifty million) from Federal Consolidated Fund (FCF) to the Universal Service Fund (USF), to help bridge the ever-increasing digital divide.

Earlier this year on 13th January, in my blog (http://www.piftikhar.com/2015/01/utilization-of-universal-service-funds/ ) I had stated that according to a careful calculation, Pakistan USF has somewhere around US$ 730 million lying un-utilised/un-committed in its books. On top of that there is another approximate equivalent of US$ 70 million flowing in every year on account of USF contributions alone. Other sources that add to the USF in Pakistan include the recently-abolished APC and the Spectrum Auction Fees, etc. However even if it took the government two years in deciding to let USF use some of that amount, it is a good news, and one should say, “Something is better than nothing”. Or is it not?

According to the same news item, with the help of these funds USF would carry out its Telecenters program, in order to provide access to people in far flung areas of the country to e-communication and IT facilities. It is purported that in the next three years 500 such Telecenters, at a total cost of Rs 11.5 billion, will be set up.

Telecenters are typically meant for the marginalized rural populations, women, the disabled, and the youth. But there are divided views about these and in the opinion of some, the concept of Telecenters is now outdated. Their reasoning is embedded in history. Ever since the concept of Telecenters first emerged in Scandinavia in 1980’s, till recently, Telecenters were nothing more than glorified PCOs (Public Call Offices) where people could go and share the computers to access the internet for basic applications like receiving and sending emails, or rudimentary web-browsing. The detractors argue that now-a-days prices of access devices (like smartphones/tablets/PCs) are dropping rapidly therefore it is enough to provide internet coverage in rural areas. Those who want to access the internet, would easily do so using their own access devices. Their argument is reinforced by the fact that sustainability of Telecenters has always been a question mark. So why invest in Telecenters, they ask.

However most others (including myself) disagree with that notion. In our opinion the Telecenters of today do not merely act as public access points, rather the Telecenters are helping the governments in two very important additional manners.

1. Enhancing basic digital literacy. This may seem as not entirely new. But whereas originally Telecenters also helped some rural citizens overcome their initial inhibitions and teach how to use the internet, in the modern Telecenters increasing digital literacy is the most important function. They go far beyond mere teaching, by hand-holding and showing how to access and acquire relevant information from the Net – like how to ask the right questions from the right experts, how to learn other relevant (non-ICT) skills from the Net, and even how to share their own experiences with others over the Net. As they become proficient in doing all of that, most of them would find it convenient to switch over to their own personal access devices – like smartphones – thus creating space for new learners, and adding to the millions of those willing to enhance their ICT-related skills. This also means that wherever there are Telecenters, there would be new demand for broadband coverage in the surrounding areas. Indeed the prerequisite for this is that parallel to setting up Telecenters, Content must be made available on the Net – Content that is in local languages and also otherwise easily understandable by rural citizens (ie explained visually with the help of videos and animations), and Content that is relevant to their daily lives (ie covering topics of health, governance, education, farming, livestock, fisheries, etc. etc.). Obviously only the Governments can do this.
2. Delivering public services at the doorsteps of the citizens. Services like getting passports and renewing various licenses should not necessitate visits to nearby towns. The myriad of Government departments dealing with public services should all converge, virtually, into the Telecenter! Take another example, that of Agriculture sector, currently 21% of GDP, and 45% of employment of country’s labor force depends on Agriculture (http://www.finance.gov.pk/survey/chapter_12/02-Agriculture.pdf). Although there are service-delivery channels available to help the farmers (agricultural department with it’s vast network of extension workers) but with exploding population and new eServices being developed, these channels are becoming grossly inadequate – particularly for those with smaller land-holdings. Scarce Government resources do not seem to match. Therefore there is an enormous requirement of efficient and fast service delivery channels. Telecenters could be those channels.

If one goes a step further and train the farmers at the Telecenters to use their smartphones to get all the information, and ask all the questions, from the Agricultural department – and vice versa – each smartphone could become a “personal extension worker”. Yes, I know this is futuristic, and in the beginning it may work effectively only with the younger generation of farmers. But like it or not, that is where technology is taking us and that is only one of the ways it can be used to our advantage!

The benefits of rural Telecenters do not end here. There are two phenomena that help perpetuate overall broadband penetration.

First – when more people learn – and use – broadband, the data traffic volumes will increase, which will enhance the appetite of the Operators to invest more in broadband infrastructure.

Second – one of the obstacles in extending wireless broadband (3G/4G) in rural areas, is the current relatively low-capacity (microwave radio based)` “backhaul” network. Hardly 5% cellphone towers are connected with optic fibers (to put it in perspective, in Thailand nearly 90% of the cellphone towers are connected with optic fibers). But since modern Telecenters consume huge amounts of data, at fast speeds, these Telecenters are typically connected with optic fiber cables. The same optic fiber cables could then also connect many more cellphone towers on the way, thus resolving the above mentioned issue of “backhaul”. In fact, in my opinion, to give a boost to rural broadband, equal access should be available to the fiber capacity installed with USF subsidies for backhaul of wireless broadband, at special low rates.

So far it is not known if these planned Telecenters in Pakistan will indeed get fiber connectivity. But, as explained above, doing so would be immensely beneficial – not doing so would be a folly.

Summarizing, setting up Telecenters is an excellent step. Properly done, it could help bring a digital revolution in the country. But to get full benefits of broadband, its eco-system has to be addressed, which includes relevant local content, high speed/capacity connectivity, and professional training/coaching of rural users with hand-holding. However 500 Telecenters (that too till 2018) in a country of more than 187 Million people, where more than 110 Million live in villages, are definitely too less. Compare that with Malaysia where there are more than 2,000 Telecenters for a rural population of only around 8 million. With funds not being an issue here, the number of planned Telecenters in the next three years should be increased by at least a factor of ten.

 

Just before my recent visit to Nigeria, I happened to come across our IT Minister, Ms. Anusha Rahman, who mentioned that she had recently met the Nigerian Minister for Communications Technology (CT) Dr. Ms. Omobola Johnson, at the 2014 ITU Plenipotentiary in South Korea, and asked her to share details of the Nigerian award-winning program of ICT-for-Girls. Nigeria had received ‘ITU Gender Empowerment Award’ in South Korea, for initiating policies and programs empowering women and girls via ICTs. I must mention here that I have always found Ms Rahman wanting to contribute, to do something positive, for benefit of the country (even if some people may have different opinions about the amount of success achieved so far).

In any case, being father of three daughters, the subject of development of girls has always been close to my heart In particular when one reads reports such as the one by the Broadband Commission Working Group on Broadband and Gender entitled “Doubling Digital Opportunities: Enhancing the inclusion of women and girls in the information society” (http://www.broadbandcommission.org/documents/working-groups/bb-doubling-digital-2013.pdf). In this report the Commission lamented, that world-wide there are currently 200 million fewer women estimated to be online than men. We do not have any such statistics for Pakistan, but the situation is certainly worse.

In Nigeria, when I mentioned my interest to CT Minister Dr Ms Johnson, she replied that closing the digital divide has become a development priority in order to drive the economic and social inclusion of women in Nigeria. She fondly remembered meeting Ms Anusha Rahman, as “another woman ICT Minister” like her!

Thanks to the CT Minister’s office (particularly Ms Abi Jagun) and head of USPF (my friend Abdullahi Maikano) I could get detailed briefings about the program.

To my surprise I found out that there is not one but three big ICT-for-Girls programs in Nigeria, under the umbrella of ‘Growing Women and Girls in Nigeria’ (GWIN) initiative of President Goodluck Jonathan. Overall GWIN is being implemented through an MoU between the Ministries of Finance, CT, Agriculture, Water Resources, Health, Works and Women Affairs. Each Ministry receives extra-budgetary finance for GWIN! Actually the Federal Government requires all Ministries to make provision for gender-specific projects in their budgets, and to set up desks for management of such gender projects. It is felt that for any ground-breaking initiative to succeed, top level support, and financial commitment, are absolutely essential.

The first ICT-for-Girls program of the Ministry of CT is a series of projects of ICT training of one thousand girls per project, sharing costs and responsibilities with private sector sponsors. Participating girls are required to have cleared Polytechnique Diploma course first. The Ministry pays for bringing batches of girls to the training venues plus their boarding and lodging. The private sector partner (sponsor) takes care of training, including training aids and the training venue. But the target is not just any ICT training. The emphasis is on improving employability of the girls. The sponsor even commits to either employ, or get employment for, at least 20% of the girls completing their training. The first such program is run together with the Chinese telecom equipment manufacturer Huawei, and is, therefore, called “Huawei 1,000 girls for ICT”. It is expected that several such projects will follow involving other companies, for wxample “Cisco 1,000 girls for ICT”  and  “MTN 1,000 girls for ICT” etc.

The second program is called “Digital Girls Club”. Run on the lines of girl-guides program, it is a program to help girls develop an early interest in the field of ICTs. It is run in partnership with Universal Service Provision Fund (USFP)) of Nigeria. Girl students in those schools and colleges become members of the Digital Girls Club where USPF has provided internet and computer labs, under its “School Access Program” (SAP). Participation is voluntary and classes are held after school-hours a couple of times every week. The course has three terms, running over a full school year. It is implemented through one or two teachers of the school/college, who are specially trained for the purpose. The curriculum is prepared with the help of civil society, predominantly by women who are already working in ICT sector in the country.

The third program “Smart Woman Nigeria”, is actually a platform, accessible to ordinary women who own mobile phones, but are unable to take advantage of opportunities offered by ICTs, due to lack of knowledge and difficulty in accessing relevant information. Smart-Woman offers learning, tips, advice and mentoring in communication skills, managing finances, health, and family work/life balance, parenting, etc, by developing and making available relevant content to meet the needs of women. The content is in the form of SMS, as well as Voice-SMS, so that those who cannot read, may also benefit. Smart-Woman project services are offered free to rural women – paid by subscriptions of higher income women in urban areas. The second phase of the program will also incorporate discussion and bulletin boards. The development of this program is said to have been the result of participation of many stakeholders, ministries, etc., including the eleven-year old “Women in Management, Business and Public Service” (WIMBIZ), a civil society organisation with a large network of professional women in Nigeria and “Change Corporation” USA. The development of the platform and mobile applications that deliver information are being developed locally, furthermore, the content being disseminated is hosted within the country.  All this also results in development of local content in Nigeria.

I am convinced that such programs could easily be modified according to local requirements, and replicated in countries like ours to help women and girls get ahead – provided commitment from the very top is forthcoming.

On 6^th January 2015, Indian Regulator, TRAI, has finally recommended a reduction in Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) levy from 5% to 3% of the annual adjusted gross revenues. This has been done due to low level of utilization of collected funds. It notes that in ten years, out of the collected equivalent of US$ 10 Bln (approx), US$ 5.7 Bln remained unutilized, representing 57% of the USO levy collected.

It is a well-known fact that telecom operators, all over the world, resent this “contribution” as they see the money either going to other sectors or – in worst case – simply down the drain. Cellphone operators (who are the major contributors) also resent the money going to other branches of ICT sector. Although now-a-days the situation has changed for the better as a lot of these funds are going into rural optic fibers, which are needed by the Cellphone operators for backhaul of mobile broadband!

Several respected experts agree with the telecom operators, for a variety of reasons – admittedly they are not wrong. Like my good friend Rohan Samarajiva (lireneasia.net), says, “Where there is cheese, there will be rats”! And Ricardo Tavares (techpolis.com) thinks that over time the collection becomes an ordinary tax, not a fund, and does not return to the telecom sector.

In early 2013, GSMA published a well-researched Universal Service Funds Study, in which it tried to solidly establish that these universal service funds, due to various challenges and limitations, are not utilized for the purpose for which they are created. The study found that in every region of the world, majority of the collected funds were lying unutilized

The GSMA study, in it’s ‘Key Findings’, recommended that the governments should “consider” if USFs are appropriate and relevant. Personally, I had an issue with that recommendation. In my blog (I have a problem with GSMA) I argued that instead of implicitly advocating cancelling of universal service funds, GSMA should try to help the countries (who are all developing countries) so that they are able to utilize the funds effectively and efficiently.

In the GSMA Report, one of the largest ‘culprits’ mentioned was India with billions of dollars lying unused. During my own research for my blog I talked to the head of Indian USOF, Mr. Ravi Shankar, whom I met at a conference in Zanzibar. He explained to me various plans that they had for spending the accumulated funds – mainly their flagship project “National Optic Fiber Network”. But apparently the speed of disbursements has not been up to that level! On top of that the India is special in any case, because it has one of the highest USF levies in the world – Five percent!

Lets compare that with some examples from other countries:

 

Therefore it appears to be good step that they have recommended to bring it down to a more reasonable level.

Coming to home, the level of utilization of USF funds in Pakistan, at this time, is actually worse. According to a careful estimate, since 2006 an equivalent of US$ One Billion has been collected (including the interest earned on the collections) – excluding those millions that were collected by PTA in the initial years and deposited directly with the government. Out of this One Billion, US$ 160 Million has been disbursed to the telcos. Another US$ 110 Million is committed in signed contracts of on-going projects, and is lying with the Government of Pakistan. The balance, equivalent to US$ 730 Million, is also lying somewhere – unutilized, uncommitted.

This is not a small amount. It is equal to 0.3% of Pakistan’s 2013 GDP (which was US$ 232.3 Bln, as per World Bank data)! Since the USF collections are now being diverted to the Government (Federal Consolidated Fund), instead of helping the unserved areas, these are merely serving to fill the fiscal gap. Does that raise questions if the USF levy in Pakistan (a very reasonable 1.5%) should also be brought down further? Perhaps even discontinued for the time being?

In fact such a performance raises those same GSMA questions: Should there be any USFs at all? Should we not let the telcos deliver in the rural areas on their own? My personal experience says a big NO to this. Telcos are unwilling to go to most of those areas even with subsidies, leave alone without!

So we have to somehow accelerate USF development projects and deploy ICT connectivity and services (real ICT services) in rural areas at a much faster pace – as was/is demonstrated by USFs in some of the developing countries. There are several international organisations trying to work on this – among them ITU, World Bank, USAID/GBI, CTO, etc. I work with all of them at one place or the other, and almost every time the question pops up if there is a better way of achieving the objectives. So far an answer could not be found. Till such time as we try to find that illusive answer, I think it is obligatory upon all of us to do our best to improve utilization of these funds as this still gives us the best chance to bridge that ever increasing digital divide – at least to an extent, if not fully.

(This article was first published in Business Recorder “ICT Review 2014”, 16 Dec. 2014)

As part of my presentation at e-India 2008, in New Delhi, when I proudly presented the slide of regional telecom development showing Pakistan ahead of all,

little did I know that it was in fact the beginning of a long era of stagnation for Pakistan telecom. Thereafter, where the Sri Lanka teledensity soared from 51% to nearly 100%, Indian teledensity from 24% to 75%, Pakistan crawled from 57% to 75%.

There had been many reasons of the success story at that time, but the telecom policies (there were several – Cellular Mobile Policy, Broadband Policy, USF Policy, etc.) and reforms of 2004 were at the top. Those policies and reforms were probably the best things that could happen to a sector in a country. But these policies were supposed to have a lifespan of five years. Nothing happened for the next ten long years.

Therefore the biggest achievement of the present government in the field of ICT will not be the 3G/4G auction, nor winning the seat in the administrative council of ITU, it will rather be formulation of new ICT policies, in consultation with the stakeholders. We are not there yet, but work is underway to formulate a telecom policy, with the assistance of an international consultant, funded by the World Bank.

A couple of rounds of stakeholder consultations have been held and it appears likely that the new telecom policy will soon see the light of the day and set Pakistan’s telecom development on the right trajectory to re-gain lost glory. Some of the elements that are important in that context are discussed briefly below.

Spectrum

No amount of spectrum is enough, particularly for our last-mile needs. But spectrum should  not be too expensive for our consumers, as it is they who pay for it in the end. The last spectrum auction of 3G and 4G in April 2014, though successful in many ways, did leave much to be desired in that respect. How? For another few years wireless broadband would not be available to a majority of our people (more than 60% live in rural areas). Lax operator license roll-out obligations allow that to happen because government’s focus on getting upfront cash was too high on the agenda. Pakistanis’ hunger for broadband can be gauged from the claims of cellular operators, that 3G users in cities have crossed 3 million mark – effectively equaling the number of broadband subscriptions in the country  – in less than six months!

Spectrum policy needs other drastic improvements as well, like in spectrum trading and re-use, so that situations are avoided where precious spectrum is lying unused on one side and some operators are craving for it on the other.    

Fiber penetration

If spectrum is needed for the last-mile, Optic Fiber Cable OFC) connectivity is needed for the backhaul. It is impossible to provide inclusive development to our burgeoning population without the help of ICTs. Fortunately computing power of the devices is doubling every year and prices are tumbling. According to well-respected technology research firm IDC, Smartphones are already replacing PCs and Laptops. On the other hand videos, which are the most effective way to teach our villagers, are bandwidth-hungry. Therefore massive amount of bandwidths will be required in the backbone/backhaul networks, which is only possible through OFCs.

Thus any future rapid inclusive economic development depends on increasing the fiber penetration in the country. That is why it was expected that ‘Fiber to Tehsil’ program of USF would be followed by a program of ‘Fiber to Union Council’ – for all of the six-and-a-half thousand Union Councils!

Taxes

There are all kinds of indirect taxes in Pakistan but the usage tax on telecom is one of the worst. It directly impacts use of ICTs by the poorest sections of the population. A large proportion of this tax is adjustable in the annual income tax – exactly what the poor cannot do, ironically because they are supposed to have been exempted from taxes! These days phones (particularly smartphones) are considered to be productivity enhancing tools. To discourage their usage, by charging high usage tax, amounts to putting breaks on productivity enhancement, and thus detrimental to inclusive economic growth

USF and ICT R&D Funds

The story of USF has been the same as telecom. On 7^th May 2010, Indian newspaper ‘Business Line’ (belonging to ‘The Hindu’ group) headlined: “Pak ahead of India in use of Universal Service Funds”  (http://www.indiapress.org/gen/news.php/Business_Line/). Among other things, Pakistan was among the first ones in the world to start using USF for optic fibers. Our neighbours followed us and today they are extending fibers to each of the 250,000 “Gram Panchayats”. Now its our turn to emulate. With nearly a billion dollars in the kitty of USF Pakistan, a little bit of will and some hard work is required. The government announced a program of 500 broadband telecenters half a year ago. Something is better than nothing if it is not so painfully slow in taking off. As for ICT R&D, little said the better. After all what can one say about an organisation where, in the last four years, there was a full-time CEO for only half a year? In both cases the industry representatives cannot be absolved of it’s responsibilities.

Content

Doing all that above is suggested would just be a big waste unless there is useful content that can educate and enhance the skills of the masses. Educate not just in the conventional sense but also teach modern techniques in agriculture, farming, livestock, commerce, fish-farming, growing fruits and preserving them for home and foreign markets, how to setup and run businesses, how to live hygienically, to name just a few of the endless possibilities.

Content is not the responsibility of IT ministry alone. Other ministries – both federal and provincial – have to play their part. To give an example – Agricultural ministries/departments have got substantial rural presence with thousands of field workers who help/guide/teach the farmers. Now with ICTs they can be made more effective by providing them with smartphones, pre-loaded with videos which demonstrate those new ways and methodologies that the farmers need to learn. In future, as smart phones and mobile broadband become more pervasive, farmers would be able to download such videos themselves whenever and wherever required. Such videos can only be prepared by our local specialists of agricultural with the help of public/private sector IT experts – not by IT experts alone.

Egovernance

The government’s role does not end here even. There is enough evidence available that ICT development comes when the governments themselves become

the biggest users of ICTs. Federal ministry of IT is working to spread use of eOffice in all federal ministries. But use of ICTs in the government has to take a quantum leap – from eOffice in a handful of ministries and mere downloading of some Forms by the citizens, to complete eGovernance. As many transactions between the citizens and the governments should start taking the broadband route.

Take the example of Branchless Banking: why cant we pay government dues, like annual vehicle tax or abiana, through mobile banking? Why must we spend our precious hours standing in queues (or pay someone to do so) to pay government dues?

 

It is not that no such content development work for egovernance is being done in Pakistan. Some provinces are doing better than others. But most of it appears to be carried out in piecemeal manner (look at vehicle number plates of different provinces, they appear to come from different countries), and none of the work is being shared among the center and/or provinces.

There seems to be no effort to learn from each other, replicate or avoid duplication, and thus waste. There is an on-going ITU/NIPA (South Korea) assisted initiative of an eGovernment Masterplan (of which I happen to be a part from the ITU side) but that deals only with the federal government. Comprehensive nation-wide medium/long term egovernment plans must be formulated and implemented by the center and the provinces jointly, which is only possible if the top leadership takes ownership and pushes for implementation.

Indeed all this would take years, but we need to hasten up so that we can again start proudly presenting Pakistan ahead of others!

 

Back in the early sixties when I was a school-kid – long before our Bengali brethren were alienated by military-rulers and feudal politicians, and when the relations between the then East and West Pakistanis were sweet and friendly – my father, a young Signals officer in the army, posted in Dhaka for a couple of years, was given an assignment that was in addition to his normal duties.

As we all know the beautiful land of Bangladesh is unfortunately prone to terrific cyclones and floods, particularly along the coast of Bay of Bengal. These cyclones prove disastrous for the poor people of those areas. Thanks to cellular telephony and a flat terrain, now-a-days Bangladesh is one of the best cellular-covered countries in the world. But during those days, telecommunications had not developed so much and the entire burden fell on the wired Telegraph network which connected the administrative headquarters, breaking down more often than not. In the absence of reliable communications, it was not possible to provide any kind of early disaster warnings to the people of those “unserved” areas. Neither was it possible to get relevant timely information about developing cyclones from those areas. Similarly providing post-disaster relief always requires a working communications system to facilitate rescue, medical and aid workers.

Amateur Radio (also called “Ham” Radio) had been developing fast since the beginning of last century, used by hobbyists to get a thrill out of talking to strangers in far off places. A typical amateur radio “station” would be a small room cramped with short-wave radio transceiver equipment, with the operator crouching in front of a microphone, wearing headsets, scanning the ITU-allocated “short-wave” frequency band for any faint human voice (or Morse-code signals), coming from any direction. There were no satellite links employed for amateur radio, but “short-wave” frequency bands made it possible to be heard over considerable distances, albeit not always very clearly because of the constant crackling sounds from the ionosphere.

Every Amateur radio network (or “Club”) had a name, and every radio station had a “Call Sign” (consisting of alphanumeric characters following a convention). Whenever two amateur radio operators sitting in different parts of the world made contact with each other and could hear well enough to understand each other’s postal addresses, they would exchange post-cards via the postal service. Amateur operators had individual postcards specially printed, which carried the name of the Club and their individual Call Sign. All received cards were displayed on the walls of the “radio station” by the recipients as trophies.

With the passage of time, amateur radio operators started discovering other innovative and useful applications of this technology. They discovered that amateur radio could also be used for a myriad of services, among those: saving lives. By then the size and power requirements had come down, so it became possible to deploy radio in the field rather quickly. Seeing these advantages the government decided to deploy an amateur radio network across East Pakistan, to be used mainly for communications to/from the areas prone to cataclysmic natural disasters. In normal times it would be used to promote understanding among the people.To develop such an amateur radio network, was the task that my father was given

I remember during the time the network was being established, and also later during its 24/7 operation, he had to travel several times (by train and steamer boats) to places like Chittagong, Cox’s Bazar, Khulna and Jessore. “The Tiger Amateur Radio Club” (it was named after the famous Bengal tiger), was inaugurated by General Khwaja Wasiuddin, who presented a “Charter” to the club, in August 1963.

Being the eldest child I (and my younger brother Javed Iftikhar) had the privilege of occasionally accompanying him to the newly setup Dhaka amateur radio station, where he had to frequently go in the evenings. He would always try to explain to us how things worked.

We left Dhaka soon after that but up to the 1965 war one kept hearing how helpful the Tiger Amateur Radio Club was in providing relief efforts. I have no idea what happened subsequently, but my father did receive a “Commendation Certificate” from the government, for his “meritorious services” in setting up the network. The Certificate hung, framed, at our home for a long time.

As a student of class-4 I can vividly recollect all these things (I even remember the call sign of Dhaka radio station, which was AP5CP) primarily because my father tried to ensure that we learned from his experiences. I remember that one day when I asked him about this ‘thing’ called radio frequency, he took a paper and a pencil and explained it all to me in terms so simple that I can never forget. In fact that was my first lesson in telecom engineering!

The first time two amateur radio enthusiasts talked to each other across the Atlantic, a watershed event in the history of Amateur Radio,  had been in the year 1923 – the year my father was born! Exactly forty years later he helped establish an amateur radio network for communications to/from unserved areas. Little did I know that after another forty-four years I would become the founding CEO of USF Pakistan – which would start my own love-affair with providing telecommunications in the unserved areas!

“This question may only be answered by someone who does NOT agree that YouTube should be opened”, I jokingly challenged the panel of eight high-profile experts sitting on the stage when a young participant at ITCN Asia 2014 (Karachi, 26^thAug ’14) stood up and, lamenting the losses to the youth due to YouTube blockage, asked how could it be re-opened. I was moderating at this ICT annual event as we (the newly formed “ICT Forum Pakistan”) were invited to co-organize and co-host this year’s conference.

It is always enlightening to hear reputable professionals at ITCN’s conference track. However for me, it has been a little irksome that the speeches and presentations do not always relate to an overall theme (in fact some are just company sales presentations). Even those that are related to a theme, are not coordinated in any way and therefore there is lack of coherence and repetition. Thus it is normally impossible ‘to take something home’. Organizing this conference provided us an opportunity to try structure it in a way that would take care of the above concerns.

To start with, since 3G and 4G are presently being deployed in the country and it is a good time to talk about it’s growth, we picked up “3G and 4G – Impetus to Growth” as our theme. Then we went on to select speakers from varied backgrounds in order to cover the theme from all angles. Hence we selected an un-biased Senior Professional and high level professionals from Fixed-line Operator, eServices Provider, Equipment Vender, Government, Regulator and two Mobile Operators. Although this is still an incomplete representation of stakeholders, but it did lead to “one of the most interesting sessions of ITCN Asia conferences in years” – according to Dr Khurshid Nizam, President of e-Commerce Gateways (the main organizers).

The first speaker, independent senior professional Mr. Nooruddin Baqai provided a historical perspective, important to learn lessons. Since he used to be in the middle of the action a decade back, he could effectively share the experiences and the results. With the help of statistics he highlighted that direct contribution of ICT sector to the GDP actually reduces once the booms are over and it is the indirect contributions that keep adding to GDP growth. He thus asserted (like several after him) that the focus of the government should not be collection of ICT revenues, rather it should aim to gain through the resultant economic development. He maintained that in order to ensure continued growth and socio-economic benefits to the society, the government has to do the most, in terms of investing in ICT usage and adoption.

As it is the Mobile Operators who are the actual providers of 3G and 4G, there were two speakers from this segment. The first one was Mr Niaz Malik, Chief Corporate Officer of CMPak (Zong), the only operator who obtained 1800 MHz for 4G. After talking about the new services that would now become possible and the resulting benefits, he stressed upon the importance of investment in the eco-system. Interestingly he said that it should be done not just through government’s efforts but also through collaboration among the telcos themselves! The second speaker from the same segment was Mr. Ehtisham Rao, Director B2B Marketing of Mobilink, Pakistan’s largest mobile operator. He talked about the challenge of OTTs (Skype, Viber, Tango, etc.) who operate free of any regulations in the country. He argued that the Telcos need not be vary of the OTTs, rather the two posses complimentary user datasets, which could be one of the grounds for collaboration. He also said that Telcos have a lot more to offer than OTTs, like mWallet, mBanking, M2M, etc; enabling businesses, and therefore the opportunities for Telcos to grow were huge.

Mr Naeem Zamindar (till recently CEO of Wateen Telecom) talked from the perspective of a Fixed Line Operator, who is both a competitor (with its fixed broadband in the last-mile) as well as a facilitator (provider of backbone/backhaul) for wireless broadband. In his short, but full-of-energy talk about the importance of WiFi, he under-scored that 70% to 80% data communication takes place from the office or the home, where WiFi is undisputedly the dominant choice for broadband access. He informed that in China, China Mobile offloads 72% of its mobile data traffic to WiFi. Other than WiFi, he underlined the usefulness of Optic Fiber Cables – not only in the backhaul. He claimed that there is a demand of at least five times more Optic Fibers than the present deployment in Pakistan. He predicted that in one year, when TV cable operators will also start upgrading their networks with fibers, inflection point of broadband growth will be visible in Pakistan.

Mr Salim Rafik, COO of NADRA Technologies Ltd, represented the largest eGovernment service provider in the country. He explained that although with 3G/4G the quality of service to the populace will improve, there would still be huge other challenges. Giving an example he said that content provider is always at a loss to decide which platform he should place his bet on, as in the last decade there have been lots of ups and downs with platforms like Symbian, Black berry, iOS, Android, Windows, etc. Quoting statistics he also lamented the trend that only 16% of users actually pay for the Apps that they use. But thankfully, due to the fast upcoming ‘internet of things’ and the great population bulge of youth in Pakistan, he was upbeat regarding the growth prospects of broadband.

The perspective of equipment suppliers was presented by Mr Ashley Gold, CEO Ericsson Pakistan. Quoting from Ericsson Mobility Report 2014, he too expressed optimism regarding growth prospects of wireless broadband, mainly owing to two factors: The first one is the gigantic potential of all kinds of connected devices – globally estimated to be 50 billion by 2020. And the second one being the extraordinary growth in mobile data traffic over smartphones, which are set to be the main driver leading to a networked society. He recommended that elements of networked society should be part of the ICT Policy.

Government’s perspective was presented by Mr Muddassar Hussain, Member Telecom Ministry of IT, that is ultimately responsible for ensuring that wireless broadband helps meet the government’s socio-economic goals. He elaborated elements out of the new Policy, that the Ministry is presently formulating, and the multiple new challenges that are being faced, when the edge (Apps and Services) has come to dominate the core. He informed that the draft of the policy will be put up for public consultation in a couple of weeks. He assured that the new policy will stress upon measures like putting more reliance on public-private partnerships, making more spectrum available, supporting collaborative eGovernment and remodeling USF and ICT R&D Fund, etc.

The floor was then opened for Q&A which generated a very lively discussion, touching myriad of topics like digital divide, lack of fiber penetration to villages, ICT jobs, entrepreneurship, etc.

Finally Dr Syed Ismail Shah, Chairman PTA wrapped up the conference proceedings. He elaborated the challenges that PTA has to face in performing it’s tasks and shared his ideas as to how PTA intends to remove some of the barriers to growth identified in the presentations. He too advocated that ICT, by itself, should not be considered a big source of revenue generation, rather be used as an enabler for bringing efficiencies in all sectors of the economy. Following his short remarks for each presentation, he assured all of Regulator’s best efforts to give the necessary impetus to growth of wireless broadband.

The overall outcomes were quite expected. Almost all speakers opined that in order to reap enormous benefits of ICTs, the government has to play a more effective role as an enabler and a facilitator, for example by:

• decreasing it’s reliance on direct revenues from the ICT sector
• developing eco-system through public-private partnerships, particularly relating to e-services like education, health, governance and agriculture
• subsidising (through USF) backhaul connectivity to remote corners of the country to deliver eServices to citizens through broadband.
• becoming the biggest consumer of ICT/broadband itself,
• releasing a lot more spectrum, at easier terms

The speakers asked the Regulator to keep the lite-touch regulation and take further steps to facilitate deployment of WiFi hotspots and data traffic WiFi off-load by mobile operators.

On the other hand the Operators were asked to collaborate among themselves to strengthen their business cases by infrastructure sharing and by jointly developing applications and services.

(By the way nobody could answer the YouTube question as how to unblock it – except a non-serious suggestion of staging a dharna to get it unblocked!)

 

If you can read Urdu, read the text on the accompanying picture and imagine (in case you can’t read the text, even then imagine!) how would it be if same information is conveyed to the agriculturists using VIDEOS! And imagine if these videos could be seen on cellphone screens of the targeted growers of the targeted area, timed according to relevance and usefulness! Helping the growers and educating them about the latest methods of improving productivity in this manner has the potential of bringing an agricultural revolution in the country! This is the power of wireless broadband – like 3G and 4G!

The accompanying picture is a real-life example where an international donor agency, a provincial government and a cellphone service provider have teamed up to convey important information to peach growers, through SMS. But the text itself acts as a barrier because most farmers are unable to read. Even if they can read, Urdu is not understood in most rural areas. And even if the language is changed to the local one, any text is prone to misinterpretations.On the other hand conveying information with the help of short video clips helps bridge all these issues. Such potential benefits of broadband do not end with agriculture, rather these extend to all vital sectors – e-education, e-health, e-governance, e-commerce, and much more.

In developing countries the greatest impact that broadband makes is in semi-urban and rural areas – in areas where it is difficult to physically deliver pubic services and people have to travel to nearby big cities. Access to e-Services like e-Agriculture not only leads to economic uplift of citizens of those areas, rather it has several side-benefits too, for instance reduction in migration to large cities.

With the handing over of the long awaited licenses for 3G and 4G technologies, wireless broadband is now being rolled out in the country. The handing over of the licenses was a great occasion, although it would not have been such a big deal if the previous administration had not failed – thrice! But now that it has been done (credit to MoIT and PTA) we must remember that if we rest on our laurels, then we are surely wearing those at the wrong place! This is the time to start taking those next steps, so that the new technologies are not just used to download movies and Bollywood songs (although there is nothing wrong with doing that as well) but also to educate and make people more productive. The country as a whole should be able to reap the benefits of an inclusive growth.

Therefore what we require next are those videos that we just mentioned – the “Content” – dubbed in local languages. Such video-clips can be produced either with the help of real actors or with animations (just like those safety videos shown aboard the airliners now-a-days). Content that is meant for every sector of the economy. No doubt that there is a huge amount of very useful content available on the net, but there are several other issues with that. Firstly language would be an issue again, secondly rural folk will find it difficult to search in the vast ocean of internet, and finally (hopefully temporarily) the main source of such content, YouTube, stays blocked in Pakistan!

Sooner than most people think, smartphones are going to be the access devices. Big global players are already working hard to make the smartphones affordable, particularly for the large populations of developing economies. Google announced last month at it’s annual developers conference in San Francisco that it was working on a low-cost smartphone aimed at emerging markets as part of an initiative called ‘Android One’ (http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2014/06/26/google-to-help-indian-companies-make-cheap-smartphones/). Earlier, Mozilla announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, that they will help develop a $25 smartphone, which will start selling by next year in India and Indonesia. According to a June 2014 report by Ericsson, globally smartphones accounted for around 65% of all mobile phones sold in first Quarter of 2014, compared to around 50% during same period last year (http://www.ericsson.com/res/docs/2014/ericsson-mobility-report-june-2014.pdf).

With the passage of time, cellphones will be used less and less for voice and more and more for data communications (it is already true in case of those of us who are active users of broadband via cellphones). Kids of the future will be amazed to know that the cellphones were originally created for voice! International Data Corporation (IDC) (http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24314413). Worldwide report shows that already 1.5 times more smartphones are being sold than PCs + Laptops + Tablets combined since 2012. By 2017 this figure will be two-times. According to a Nokia study, in most of the world 30% of the cellphones are now smartphones, which is rapidly increasing. In Pakistan it is around 10%. But that should not be seen as low because in Pakistan we are only in the introductory phase of wireless broadband.

Thus all that spending on providing free laptops and tablets by the federal and provincial governments may be saved! Instead the efforts should focus on creating that all-important, urgently needed, local content, and making it available to the citizens in a way that they do not have to pay for it (already one-of-the-highest taxes on ICTs in the world, is causing enough harm). But unfortunately on the content front, there are no signs of any activity by the government. We, as a nation, are missing out on a unique opportunity to leapfrog and catch up with many of the developing economies who are galloping ahead riding the broadband wave – including our friends in Africa. When I got invited to the pan-Africa ICT4Ag conference in Rwanda late last year (http://www.piftikhar.com/2013/11/my-first-time-in-rwanda-and-ict4ag-conference/) I had the astonishing opportunity to see firsthand the deep and impactful use of ICTs in Agriculture in some of the African countries.

So here is what the federal and provincial governments need to do (with MoIT providing necessary guidance):

1. Bringing the enormous experience related to Agriculture, Education and Health, etc. available in various ministries, and enormous experience of content creation available in the private sector together, and usefully employing all that to create wonderful content!
2. Simultaneously using the funds available with USF, helping the telcos speed up roll-out of broadband in non-lucrative areas by investing in two infrastructure components: (a) Optic Fiber Cables to villages, to provide backhaul for wireless broadband, and (b) the last-mile access of wireless broadband for the villagers.

Unless the true potential of wireless broadband is understood, and steps taken to use it – just like several other developing countries are doing – the huge opportunity presented by 3G, 4G, etc. is going to be nothing but a terrible waste…