By Muhammad Yasir

KARACHI: The Internet users have reached nearly four million in the country amid slight growth witnessed in the base of Direct Subscriber Line (DSL) by the end of March 2009, said Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).

The latest statistics released by PTA reflected only two percent growth in DSL users during the January to March 2009 as compared with last quarter of the current fiscal year. The overall DSL subscriber stood at 272,626 in the country despite emergence of good number of operators in the sector. However, the dial-up connection growth remained stagnant at 3.7 million users, which has not shown any growth since July 2008.

Sector people said that broadband connections would witness healthy growth through DSL and Wimax services because of their highly advanced technology and easy connection availability. On the other hand, the dial-up connection is likely to lose its market share in the future. They pointed out that falling prices of broadband services will increase the number of its subscribers rapidly, while a significant number of dial-up internet connection will remain attractive for users owing to its lowest service charges. Focusing on commercial sector, operators are offering broadband services through multiple technologies such as Direct Subscribers Line (DSL), Cable, Fiber To The Home (FTTH) Hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) and Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (Wimax). DSL holds the lion share of 59 percent in the overall broadband users’ market led by Wimax with 20 percent at the end of 2008, PTA report says.

The rapid growth in the proliferation of broadband services has been estimated to widen its nationwide users’ base possibly by five million in next couple of years. The emergence of one after another broadband operators in the Pakistani market has stirred competition at the very initial stage among.

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