I think Jazz does not need to renew their Warid license at all.DIRBS is a joke. The guys at PTA are also a joke (who now say social media should be blocked to clamp down on blasphemy...). The spectrum guys are a joke.
I'm sort of on the side of [MENTION=136639]zafarabbasrizvi[/MENTION] on this one - except, what they've done in some European countries is sunset the 3G networks and retained 2G and 4G, whilst launching VoLTE.
If our operators (all four of them) can start mas VoLTE, then problem solved. They don't need to renew the 3G license.
But wait, 3G is not in the question - it's 2G and 4G. And if the QoS standards were not revised, I'm pretty sure operators wouldn't have this issue - since later on in the article, it says the rollout obligations and costs are a double whammy ("In this respect, the licensees’ persistent stance has been that the issue of quality of service and rollout obligations is dependent on the value of renewal fee of the licenses. This is mainly due to the fact that higher the license renewal fee, lesser the amount operators will be able to spend on infrastructure to meet minimum quality benchmarks.")
Price per megahertz for 900Mhz: $39.5M. 1800Mhz: $29.5M
Jazz has Warid (4.8) and Mobilink (7.6Mhz).
4G: 3Mhz (from 4.8Mhz - left with 1.8Mhz for 2G).
3G: 5Mhz (from 7.6Mhz - left with 2.6Mhz for 2G).
2G: 2.6Mhz + 1.8Mhz = 4.4Mhz.
If they dump Warid's holding, and convert their 3G to 4G (and shrink 4G down to 3Mhz so 4.6Mhz is reserved for 2G), then they could save $189.6M... but they'd only do this if they're actually serious about their voice call quality and VoLTE.
Telenor has 4.8Mhz (900Mhz) and 8.8Mhz (1800Mhz).
I don't think they have a lot of wiggle room.
Zong has 7.6Mhz (2G) and 22.6Mhz (1800Mhz).
They've got 2.6Mhz spare for 2G on 1800Mhz, which I've read they can't use (it was given to them as compensation) since their 900Mhz band is "dirty", especially near Lahore, so they can sunset those frequencies (they do use 900Mhz in most other places, IIRC). Besides, they have the largest proportion of 3G and 4G customers (around 50%, perhaps - I've stopped updating the numbers for some months now to check) so they could sunset their 2G network (since in the few places they've using CA, it's with 2100Mhz, and not 900Mhz). They could save $300.2 M. I don't think they use their 900Mhz spectrum at all, so they could be the biggest beneficiary of this dump.
Ufone have a lot of 3G sites on 900Mhz, but they're also choked in 1800Mhz (because of 4G) so they won't necessarily benefit. I've also noted that I tend to see more 3G sites on 900Mhz for Ufone than on 2100Mhz... so they could CA 2100Mhz and 1800Mhz for 4G? But then, why is Ufone still relevant?
Zong could benefit the most from this saved money and actually use it in their network. Or give it to me instead. Jazz could also benefit. But the other two operators are starved for spectrum.
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In other news... wait, I'll make a separate post for that.
Apart from Warid Jazz holds following spectrum
900 MHz= 7.6 MHz
1800 MHz=(10+6) 16 MHz
2100 MHz= 10 MHz
Now if they decided to dump Warid spectrum completely, they can go for following option very easily
2G= 6 MHz of 1800 MHz + 2.6 MHz of 900 MHz TOTAL 7.6 MHz for 2G
3G= 10 MHz of 2100 MHz DC-HSPA+
4G= 10 MHz in 1800 MHz and 5 MHz in 900 MHz CA 15 MHz
Their own 2G license will expire on 2024, so they have enough time to either dump 3G or 2G untill then. Moreover they can save 450 Million dollars and spend this money on infrastructure.
Talking about Zong, they have following spectrum if they decides not to renew
1800 MHz= 10 MHz
2100 MHz= 10 MHz
Zong has 30 Million customers. From that they have 12.5 Million 4G users, 8.5 Million 3G users and 9 Million 2G users. They only has 30% of their users on 2G, least in all operators. So they do not need more than 5 MHz for 2G users. Since their 3G users are decreasing every month from past few months and 4G customers are increasing. They can go for following option
2G= 5 MHz of 1800 MHz
3G= 5 MHz of 2100 MHz
4G= 5 MHz of 2100 MHz + 5 MHz of 1800 MHz
With this they can be not as fast as Jazz (which they already not) but with the pace they are converting 2G users to 3G/4G they can completely phase out 2G within couple of years and than refarm that 5 MHz of 1800 MHz of 2G for 4G and their deployment will be like
3G= 5 MHz
4G= 10 MHz of 1800 MHz + 5 MHz of 2100 MHz TOTAL CA 15 MHz.
Jazz's 4G customer base will cross Zong's within 3-4 months and soon their 4G speed will no longer as fast as it is now. So after 2 years Jazz and Zong will be even in 4G speed.
Unfortunately Telenor and Ufone missed their train when they opt for only 5 MHz of 3G spectrum in 2014. Ufone also did suicide by not getting additional spectrum for 4G as well. Future is tough for both companies
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