Capitalizing on 5G in Pakistan

Asif Aziz, Chief Commercial Officer of Jazz, shared the company’s vision in bridging the digital divide in Pakistan.

As Jazz completes 25 years in Pakistan, Asif Aziz, Chief Commercial Officer for Jazz in Pakistan, shared some interesting insights and stats on the company’s reach and growth across the country.

According to Aziz, Jazz has so far managed to establish its network in over 750 cities across Pakistan, with more than 12-and-a-half thousand base stations up and down the country, and over 57 million subscribers.

The company is now looking to broaden its horizons and bridge the digital divide across the country.

 

Inclusion of masses to bridge the digital divide
Aziz says that whilst most cities in Pakistan are well-covered by their network, Jazz is now going to focus on the rural pockets of the country.

Their goal is to serve the very communities that need data services, which will empower and actually transform their lives.

One such example, as per Aziz, is the Jazz Cash service, which is today serving more than five million customers every single day.

“Jazz Cash allows people to send money throughout the country from anywhere as long as the user has a Jazz connection,” he shares.

The telco has also launched a free version of Facebook that allows customers to access a simple text-based version of the popular social networking website.

Other Jazz initiatives along the same lines include the Doctor’s Program, BIMA health insurance, as well as a special agriculture-focused app.

Government, startups and tech
Aziz shares that Jazz is also working closely with the National Incubation Centre, enabling young tech entrepreneurs and startups to flourish, come up with new ideas, and help them with seed funding.

According to him, Jazz helps showcase the work done by some of these startups at global forums in the Silicon Valley and even at the Mobile World Congress that takes place in Barcelona every year.

“We have also worked for the Government to be able to accelerate ourselves to a digital state,” says Aziz.

“We recently wrote a policy document that actually talks about how to bring more digital services to actually enable Pakistan to move forward,” he added.

5G in Pakistan
Aziz is hopeful that the advent of 5G in Pakistan will be a lot quicker than that of previous legacy technologies.

“5G may launch in some of the more technologically-advanced, Asian markets of Japan and South Korea soon. I think China will follow by 2020, so that’s at least 12 months away in terms of formal launch.”

“Pakistan will be in a great position to learn from these launches, and will be able to capitalise on them,” he added.

As per Aziz, 5G will provide a very interesting opportunity to professionals and individuals in the industry because of the hyper connectivity it offers.

“5G will offer greater bandwidth, which will allow more things to be connected,” he says.

“When more things are connected, they will allow for greater automation, and that I think will bring empowerment to various societies. This hyper connectivity of devices and people will really accelerate us to the digital state.”

Originally posted on Dawn