The increase in the use of telecom services during the Corona virus lockdown has resulted in a 129 per cent increase in the tax contribution of the sector, which has paid Rs 278 billion in the financial year 2019-2020.
“Lockdown has led to a significant increase not only in the number of subscribers but also in the use of telecom services as a result of increased demand for telecom services. The Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA) has announced its annual report of 2020. Data usage stands at 4,498 petabytes (fiscal year 2020), compared to an increase of more than 77 percent at 2,545 petabytes (fiscal year 2019), the report said.
The report said that “significant growth” could not have been recorded if the telecom sector had not been upgraded in a timely manner. The country currently has an international bandwidth of 3.1 terabytes and about 47,000 cell sites, of which 90 x 4G are capable sites.
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The report also said that the country’s total broadband purchases have increased by 175% in the last five years. The number of broadband subscribers in the country has crossed 90 million, the number of subscribers has increased by about 8% in the fiscal year 2020. By fiscal year 2020, total broadband penetration in Pakistan is 42.2%.
Device Identification and Registration System (DIRBS) contributed for tax collection
The report said that the government’s tax collection has also increased due to the Device Identification and Registration System (DIRBS) for tax collection on handset imports. Local handset manufacturing has revived the telecom ecosystem, with local 4G device manufacturing up 34%.
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