USF Approves Rs8b Contracts For Broadband Services in Remote Areas

Just to provide the broadband services to all the un-served and under-served areas in the country, the Universal Service Fund (USF) Board approved the contracts of worth approximately Rs8.81 billion. Under this contract, the company will provide high-speed mobile broadband services for around 6 million people in remote areas of Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).

USF Board Approved Rs8.81b Contract For Broadband Services for Remote Areas

The USF Board also approved the award of ‘Next Generation Broadband for Sustainable Development’ contracts to Telenor, Ufone and Jazz. It also awarded the optic fibre cable contracts to PTCL. USF took this decision as per advised by the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecom. On the 75th board of directors meeting of USF, Federal Secretary for Ministry of Information Technology (IT) and Chairman of USF Board Shoaib Ahmad Siddiqui, has awarded these projects to above-mentioned companies.

USF awarded worth around Rs4.7 billion to Telenor, Ufone and Jazz to provide broadband services to approximately 0.98 million population. The project will cover around 86,773sq.km of un-served areas.

According to the awarded contract, Telenor will cover the Chaghi and Nushki districts in Balochistan that will serve an unserved population of around 0.16 million and an approximate unserved area of 47,872sq. km.

Similarly, Ufone will cover the area of Gwadar, Kech and Panjgur districts in the province of Balochistan. It will give benefit to 0.48 million population in 377 unserved regions and approximately 34,899sq. km of unserved area.

Meanwhile, Jazz will give benefit to 0.34 million population of Jhelum and Chakwal districts in Punjab that will an approximate unserved area of 4,002sq. km.

Also, USF awarded the contracts of optic fiber cable programme to PTCL for Bajaur, Mohmand, Khyber, Orakzai, Kurram, frontier region Peshawar and frontier region Kohat districts in the KP and Naushahro Feroze, Shaheed Benazirabad and Khairpur districts in the province of Sindh. The overall value of the projects is approximately Rs4.65 billion to cover the 1,466km of optical fiber cable to connect 130 towns and union councils.