Internet is an amazing communication tool through its open architecture and global outreach. With the passage of time, internet usage models have moved away from being more passive and static text driven content to rich digital content. User’s expectations of how these applications respond to their input however remains the same. They expect the experience to be seamless, instantaneous and smooth. It is inevitable that the Internet and power-hungry applications will continue to grow unabated as more people move online.
If we compare the ICT trends in Pakistan, 72.4{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} of households have a TV, 65{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} population uses mobile telephony, 33.5{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} own a computer whereas only 15.8{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} are accessing Internet. Over the past three years, the beam of the ICT services in the country is emerging due to the strong infrastructure development. The mobile infrastructure and the Fiber backbone in particular are playing key role in attracting more subscribers base. In recent years, the application devolopment and its usage in Pakistan shows high demand of ICT based services. The following chart depicts the increase in this trend.
Broadband subscribers in Pakistan have touched 1.4 million mark, compared to 900,000 subscribers. In order to assess the Internet usage trends of the users, an extensive exercise was carried out by analyzing the Internet traffic of the country. The data has been gathered through International and National Internet gateways been managed by PTCL and Transworld Associates. The results concluded by the traffic trends are summarized as follows.
The trends of the usage are quite positive keeping view the interest of the users in utilizing Internet for carrying out various activities as well as acquiring information knowledge, entertainment and social networking.
The general usage pattern states that 38{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} of Internet users browse for social networking sites, 27{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} for educational purposes, 24{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} to access e-mails and 21{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} browse the Internet for search purposes on daily basis.
While analysing the top usage categories it was found that over the last 4 months, social networking had been the most popular usage pattern followed by search engines, job hunting, online shopping and entertainment. The incresing interest in online shopping is quite encourging for businesses to introduce such services for the consumers.
The following graph shows the number of website hits recorded at the Internet exchange points of Pakistan over the last 4 months. The trends shows a upward trend while more users are been addded in overall Interent penetration.In regards to browsing public department’s websites over the Internet, State Bank of Pakistan is one the top over last 4 months. 22.42{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} of the Internet users accessed its website while website of Pakistan International Airline was accessed by 22.35{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} of the users. Federal Board of Revenue is presuming 18.67{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} while Pakistan Telecommunication Authority attracted 14.90{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} Internet traffic in the government websites category.
The search engine usage patterns highlights that 61.33{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} of the traffic was directed to access Google search engine followed by Bing, Ask, AltaVista and AOL.
Online banking is flourishing in Pakistan as it reflects a 32 percent growth witnessed last year. Electronic banking (E-banking) is getting increasingly popular as the number and values of e-banking transactions in the country have shown a significant growth in the last fiscal year. A total of PKR 124.6 million e-banking transactions were recorded valuing PKR 13.9 trillion during the fiscal year 2008, showing a growth of 25.4{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} in numbers and 32.3{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} in amount when compared with the fiscal year 2007.
Bank of Punjab is most popular bank website followed by Bank Al-Habib. Other popular banking websites include Muslim Commercial Bank, Bank Alfalah and Allied Bank.Online editions of daily newspapers in Pakistan are among the top visited
services. Currently, Jang is the market leader with 45.80{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} of compartive share on the online accessed newspaper while Express emergingly following the Jang with a 30.20{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} of comparitive share. English news papers including The News and Dawn have 17.25{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} share while other newspapers eneded up with 6.75{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10}.
The fever of Cricket is one of the renowned characteristics of natural enjoyment sense of Pakistani Public. The Internet flow conforms the true story as Cricinfo the 
leading website about all cricket activities across the globe is the torchbearer with the 41.45{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} massive averaged share over the last year while Ten Sports website follows the Cricinfo with 20.75{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} traffic share. World Wide Wrestling Entertainment and Yahoo Sports are here with promising 18.90{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} and 11.04{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} traffic shares.
Currently, the Media is acquiring a prominent place in the internet usage as well. Express News Network is leading with 24.62{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} of averaged internet usage while Geo 
Network is following with a little margin and having an appreciated share of 23.84{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10}. ARY Network is getting attention of the Internet users with 20.49{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} averaged share during last year while Dunya TV network and Sama TV network are having 17.20{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} and 9.32{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} shares respectively.Gmail is the most popular e-mail service in the country followed by Yahoo, Hotmail and AOL.
Facebook, as a social giant with more than five million users accounts from Pakistan and is with 36.47{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} of the total share of social networking websites traffic of Pakistan on Internet while twitter is on the second place followed by LinkedIn and newly introduced platform of Google+.The impact of internet on education sector in Pakistan is quite significant. Every major university, college and school is offering various services to students and public over their websites.
The trends shows that during the last four months FAST website is on the top with 26.87{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} of the traffic. NUST is next in line with 26.03{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} and LUMS has total share of 19.23{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} while GIKI shows 11.75{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} of the hits.
Job hunt is among the most poular Internet traffic trends in the country. Rozee.pk, the jobs search gaint, populated the Internet with 35.91{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} traffic in this regard while joinpakarmy website follows the Rozee.pk with 23.14{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} share.
While connecting the previous dots, the future seems not so much fuzzy. The future trends road map of Pakistan is stupefying. The current trends and changing technology horizons are the source of insight into the future. The world is rapidly converting to a real role model of Global village under the umbrella of social networking, multimedia communication and most importantly with the usage of internet through wireless devices. However, social networking will evolve and get a proficient significance in the online life while the acquisition of information through search engines as a natural desire of human being will lead the internet life as well. Jobs, email, Video content, local content and other field of interest over internet will get boom as well and especially more discoveries are still to be loomed.
