Universal Service Fund organizes Broadband Industry Workshop

Riaz Asher Siddiqui, CEO-Universal Service Fund has said that connectivity is going to play a vital role in the growth of Pakistan, therefore, we have to sit down and understand what has to be done and what has been done. He added that we are all aware that Pakistan’s broadband market is directly linked to the nation’s growth and prosperity and therefore this workshop holds more importance for all the stakeholders. He also said that it is important for all of us to understand the importance of the broadband market and sit together to design and implement the future polices. He was delivering a welcome address at the Broadband Industry Workshop organized by USF with collaboration of Ministry of Information Technology and International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to formalize Pakistan National Broadband Policy Projects.
Riaz Asher Siddiqui in his opening address also said that Broadband has been one of the major USF success stories since more than 412,000 connections have been provided throughout Pakistan. He added that with more than 1200 Educational Broadband centers and almost 300 Community Broadband centers established till date more challenging and productive programmes will be undertaken in the future for the promotion of telecom related services.
Muhammad Anwar Sheikh, Joint Secretary for Development at Ministry of Information Technology in his closing address said that Universal Service Fund (USF) will keep intensifying its efforts to promote Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for the sustainable technological development and prosperity of the country in the future as well. He further said that objective of USF, which consists of contributions of licensed telecom service providers, is to provide most modern services to the Pakistanis living in smaller towns and cities where this facility would not have come for another 3 to 5 years.
Experts of International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Sameer Sharma and Jim Holmes also gave presentations on the importance of Broadband and ITU initiatives and Pakistan National Broadband Policy Project respectively.
Dr. Ismail Shah, Member Telecom, Ministry of IT presented Government view and Industry view was given by PTCL.