One of the current players has appealed to the government, requesting 5 MHz at a cost of around $29 million per MHz. “The cellular business has appealed the federal government for a fixed-rate allocation of 5-megahertz (MHz) spectrum.” However, the government summoned an Auction Advisory Committee (AAC) meeting on Wednesday under the supervision of the Minister of Finance Miftah Ismail to make a final decision,” according to top official sources. Under federal government policy instructions, spectrum auctions for Next Generation Mobile Services (NGMS) were held in Pakistan in 2014, 2016, 2017, and 2021. As a result, paired spectrum of 30 MHz in the 1900/2100 band, 29 MHz in the 1800 band, and 10 MHz in the 850 band was auctioned and assigned to cellular mobile carriers. The federal government may issue policy directives to conduct a spectrum auction under Section 8(2) of the Pakistan Telecommunication (Re-organization) Act 1996 to offer the available frequency bands to all interested new and existing operators in an open, transparent competitive manner in order to increase capacity and improve service quality.
