Pakistan’s broadband segment is making rapid progress and posted steady growth during the year 2012, asserts the annual report of PTA.

The segment is led by country’s leading integrated telecommunication services provider, Pakistan Telecommunications Company Limited (PTCL), which further strengthened its position by claiming more than 60pc share in broadband market, the report states. The telecom service provider has strengthened its position in the broadband market, up from 57pc the previous year. The report also states that the incumbent has more than 1.26 million broadband subscribers (as of June 2012), depicting a growth of 49pc during the last fiscal year.

Sources said that the total number of customers served by the company has increased significantly over the last few month as the statistics in the report are till June 2012. PTCL broadband network currently covers more than 2000 cities, small towns and rural areas and this proliferation of broadband internet is driving ICT growth in remote areas of the country. PTA report further states that, the country has 5.87m Local Loop subscribers and PTCL remained the dominant player in both the LLT and WLL, with more than 74pc share in the overall Local Loop subscriber base.

The total Broadband internet subscribers in Pakistan has reached 2.35 million till Dec 2012, and broadband penetration rate by June 2012 stood at 1.2pc up from 0.89pc in 2011. Since 2007, the broadband industry has maintained a growth rate of 127pc, coincidently, it’s the same year that PTCL started its broadband operations. Overall a record 0.6 million broadband subscribers were added in 2012, a major chunk of which goes to PTCL