Mobile communications and Internet in Pakistan

Internet speed for cell phones and fixed network

With an average download speed of 11.22 Mbit/second for fixed-network broadband internet, Pakistan ranks 149th in an international comparison. The upload rate was only 10.63 Mbit/second (125th place).
In mobile internet, i.e., on tablets and smartphones, Pakistan comes 120th with a download speed of 16.34 Mbit/second. The upload speed of around 9 Mbit was enough for 103rd place.

The Speedtest Global Index published regularly by Ookla is based on several million individual measurements in April 2023 from 180 countries.

Mobile phone rates in Pakistan

Every year, the International Telecommunication Union calculates for many countries what a mobile phone contract costs to use. A monthly budget averaging US$ 5.20 was calculated Pakistan in 2021. This is about the same value as in the previous year.

The ITU refers to the costs for monthly use and includes 140 telephony minutes, 70 text messages and a data transfer of 2 GBytes. The transfer speed should be the minimum of a 3G connection, i.e. at least UMTS, which is already outdated in many parts of the world. 2 GBytes do not sound much. However, this is already quite a high consumption in a worldwide comparison. If one does not take a fixed amount in US dollars, but converts it to the economic output per inhabitant, a user in Pakistan spends 4.4% of his gross national income on mobile telephony. Worldwide, this rate is around 6.6 percent.

In the USA, the monthly cost was around $38.10.

Lack of network coverage with 5G

A modern 5G network does not yet exist in Pakistan (as of 2021). The penetration rate of 4G, i.e., mobile communications with at least LTE speed, was recently 75.40 percent. In other words, 56.92 million people in the country had to make do with a maximum Internet speed of the outdated UMTS standard (or even less).

The following diagrams show the development of the various telephone and internet connections as a percentage of the country's population. Values above 100 percent mean that, on average, every inhabitant has more than one connection.

Access to the internet in Pakistan from 1990 - 2021

Broadband internet in Pakistan 2005 - 2021

Pakistan is lagging behind in the expansion of broadband internet connections. Around 21 percent of all residents have access to the internet. Around 1 percent have their own fast internet connection, which is at least faster than the former ISDN (more than 256 kbit/s). All fixed connections via DSL, cable or satellite were counted here, but not those connected to the internet via mobile communications.

The increasing prevalence of cell phones and the simultaneous decline in the number of fixed-network phones also indicate a change here. While the number of fixed-network phones has declined over the past few years, the number of cell phones has increased noticeably at the same time. Most recently, there were 82 cell phone contracts per 100 people. This trend can be observed worldwide, but is not yet as pronounced in Wakanda as in some other countries.

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