It used to be that the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and DSL operators had to buy Internet bandwidth from PTCL. For the last 2 years this has been a matter of contention whereby ISPs wanted the option to buy from other providers (such as TWA) who have entered the telecom backbone bandwidth market.
As reported by The News:
The PTA, after a series of negotiations, has finally issued the minutes of the meeting held between the ISPAK (Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan) and the PTCL on 5th May 2009 in which it was decided that the ISPs will be free to buy Internet bandwidth from third party operators and would be allowed to link their optical fibre cable to one PTCL exchange per city. The PTA has also decided that the PTCL will not increase charges of its leased circuits used by the DSL operators for inter-exchange bandwidth only for the next year.
The PTA has reserved a judgment on settling the DSL wholesale and retail prices of the PTCL and committed to resolve this long outstanding issue within a month. Pakistan has come a long way from the early days of Internet in 1990s with only one submarine cable connecting the country with rest of the world. The country today has three submarine cables linking Karachi with Southeast Asia, Europe and North America named as SWM3, SMW4 and TWA, first two with the PTCL and the third with a private operator. The total Internet bandwidth to the country stands at around 18 gigabytes, growing at around 45% every year for the last three years.
Photo Credits: PTCL
i had placed an order for 1 mbps broadband 3 times in 3 weeks but they dont respond….previously i used Cyber’s dsl and it was awesome…then i switched on to micronet (after shifting my home) and their service was my best experience so far…now as a son of an army officer we have to endure constant shiftings so here i am now running after ptcl for a broadband connexion coz i hav heard that they allow switching of service from one area to another…