Wireless phone operators are focusing to switch over their business to broadband in order to cash their investment in the potential and much-less competitive market.
Operators in Wireless Local Loop (WLL) sector are planning to provide wireless broadband service on their same spectrum allotted for the telephony services in specific regions, seeking to stay in the profitable market from a stiff competitive market.
The trend emerged as a result of services transition by two operators namely Mytel and Qubee, which employed 3.5 GHz wireless telephony spectrum for broadband services in different telecom region. The technology used for telephony services, CDMA, is changed into Wimax for Internet broadband. Mytel is now providing broadband services in Peshawar on its wireless phone services licence and Qubee started its broadband services in Karachi after acquiring spectrum of another wireless firm.
The broadband subscriber on wireless licences witnessed sharp growth as the base jumped from 190,947 in October 2009 to 331,416 in April 2010 – an increase of more than 73 percent in just six months, employing WiMax and EvDO technologies, PTA statistics reported.
WLL operators have been facing cutting-throat competition owing to excessive number of players in the market since the deregulation of the market.
Analysts said that WLL operator’s revenues from subscriptions and voice and data traffic have fallen significantly as the sector faces internal competition among players and external from cellular sector. The growth in number of WLL users also saw contraction in the past couple of months despite constant cut in tariffs and special call packages by the operators.
In July 2009, the beginning of current fiscal year, the number of wireless connections stood at 2.56 million, which reached 2.77 million subscriptions by May 2010. Hence, the sector has added 23,914 connections merely as negative growth was recorded in three months while less than one percent growth was witnessed in the same months out of a total of 10 months (July 2009 – May 2010).
There are 14 licensees in WLL allotted by the authority for different telecom regions.
PTA has cancelled the licences of three none operational WLL licensees after giving due notices, opportunities of hearings and extensions.
WLL penetration is seen in small cities and villages particularly but its number of connections is quite good in big cities where PCO agents use it for commercial purposes.

WLL operators seeking to enter broadband business