When Pakistan's leaders discussed telecom deregulation last week, cellphones were banned for fear a bomb hidden inside a handset could be used to kill President Pervez Musharraf.
However the only explosion has been in the telecom sector itself and government leaders are counting on the country's cellular success to woo foreign capital.
Pakistan's chief telecom regulator Shahzada Alam said a new tariff policy had been behind the massive growth in the sector and he expects foreign investments of at least US$2 billion annually in the next two to three years.
"We have convinced operators to bring down tariffs to increase profits," Alam said. "By making calls cheaper, the networks are actually making more money. What we have achieved here is a good example to others in Asia."
Despite opposition from the state-run Pakistan Telecommunication Co, Ltd (PTCL) and others, Alam forced a call-party-pays (CPP) system whereby incoming calls on mobile phones became free from last year.
The move saw the number of mobile phones balloon to nearly 1.2 million, up from 742,000 mobile users a year ago.
Alam noted that PTCL's new cellular network known as U-fone, which was set to break even in three years, began showing profits in just 18 months.
At a time when the global telecom has been fairing poorly, Pakistan is seeing a boom.
The government is now finalising an ambitious de-regulation policy that will go into effect before the monopoly granted to PTCL on fixed line phones ends in December.
"What I am thinking of is opening the market to as many investors as possible," Alam said. "My aim is to almost double the number of telephones in the country in the next three years or so."
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