3G roll out: Need of expansion to rural population in Pakistan

3G licenses are soon to be awarded to the telecom companies and with Free trial period giving the users in urban areas a taste of high speed internet and on-the-go next generation mobile communication services, rural population must not be forgotten either by government or telecom operators. It is actually the heartland that must reap the fruits of mobile devices which could become their source of connecting with world. With not much resources to afford a computer and with government,s incapacity to provide majority of rural population with a broadband connection, 3G technology can be the solution to this technology lagging majority of Pakistan. But telecom companies don,t seem to be much thrilled about launching these services to these deprived millions as it is not cost effective to them and even government seems to be singing in chorus with their wealthy clients. In its Information Memorandum (IM) for 3G & 4G auction, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has asked successful bidders to roll out 3G within 9 months to the urbanities of Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar and Quetta but even after 6 year of 3G auction, telecos can launch 3G in only 50% of tehsil headquarters and they,ll be saved from the formalities of their roll out. Despite an initial setback put for rural population of the country by their own government, there are still several ways using which benefits of technology and its perks & privileges can be transferred to the residents of the far flung areas. For starters, brave and aggressive public investment is required in ICT infrastructure to launch broadband. Although Minster of State for IT, Ms. Anusha Rahman has promised to launch fiber optic based internet in every union council but for that economic independence to Universal Service Fund is pivotal. You can,t expect an organization with no monetary freedom to complete such a mammoth task. Business Recorder rightly pointed, in one of its recent articles, that plans of rolling out 3G to rural population must not be scraped just on the notion that they are not adequately educated. They might not have a college degree or a high school certificate but they are quick learner with special attraction to technology. Their rationality and smartness should not be allowed to be outshined by their life styles and their distance from posh cities. BR rightly mentions that Similar predictions had made rounds when SMS was introduced in the 90s. Did SMS fail in Pakistan? Well, Pakistanis sent 316 billion SMS in FY13, easily beating India and China–two of the world,s largest telecom markets–in terms of SMS per subscriber.