ISLAMABAD: The total outgoing national voice traffic both fixed and mobile networks has increased to 393.5 billion minutes during 2015 as compared to 345.7 billion minutes during same period last year.
There has been a significant rise in cellular to cellular traffic as operators continue to provide more minutes per rupee due to competition and threat of Over-The-Top (OTT) services.Average outgoing minutes used by a subscriber per month has also witnessed increase by 19.2 per cent from 219 minutes in 2014 to 261 minutes in 2015.
Statistics issued by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on Sunday said cellular mobile operator strive hard to win customers from each other by offering attractive packages of voice and SMS including free calls and unlimited SMS.
Similarly, in terms of SMS statistics, a total of 393 billion SMSs were exchanged during 2015 as compared to 301.7 billion during 2014, showing a 30.3 per cent increase.Accordingly, average SMS per subscriber per month during 2015 also increased to 187 as compared to 180 in previous year.
The report data after success of mobile broadband, OTT services are becoming a major challenge for operators to keep up with traditional voice traffic and corresponding revenues.
Availability of high speed data on mobile networks has also enabled the smooth provision of voice services through OTT channels. However, there is still a vast area of population still to be covered by the 3G and 4G LTE signals.
Therefore, there is large dependency on GSM services, as the OTT services require a smart device and usage skills in addition to high speed internet access.
Moreover, attractive tariff packages customized to the need of different segments of the society and age group provide sufficient utility to telecom users in Pakistan to keep using cellular voice and SMS services.
The data said cellular mobile services are backbone of telecom industry which underwent revolutionary changes during last year.
On one hand, the introduction of 3G and 4G LTE services provided a much needed boost to cellular sector, creating new revenue opportunities for the operators and on other hand, the Biometrics re-verification (BVS) drive immediately after 3G and 4G launch downgraded potential subscriber pool by millions.
The operators not only had to exert time and manpower towards the BVS activity but also incurred huge expenses on the project. The BVS project has been concluded successfully. The cellular industry can capitalize on immense potential in the data services. Informative marketing campaigns, well researched offers and packages, best quality network backed by affordable smart devices and useful application development will define future of cellular mobile services in the country.
