Mr. Walid Irshaid, President & Group CEO – PTCL
Interview: Gulraiz Khalid
Gulraiz: What opportunities do you anticipate and foresee with 3G licensing?
Mr. Walid: Well! Talking about opportunities, definitely we always look for opportunities, we all follow opportunities. I always say that this country is always rife and replete with opportunity. But now at this point of time before we go into the licensing regime we see how much will be the license fee? We want to see what other say of these regulations? Perhaps it is a bit premature to talk about opportunities. It could be a challenge to the operators as well. 3G cannot come at a sweet spot in your industry. In other countries people who have launched 3G are facing challenges and tough challenges. So, I would say I hope it is going to be an opportunity but it is too premature at this point of time before we enter into the seeing the real licensing regime. However, to answer the question, of course we all operators know the opportunities the 3G brought in other parts of the world. Definitely it will lead to wider 3G wireless broad band servicing in the country.
Gulraiz: Ok. So, now the licensing is being done. Do you think auctioning is the best way to give out the licensing because you know keeping in view of the very low mobile data penetrated market?
Mr. Walid: Well if they want to go for auctioning or something else, what will be the better when we see the price? The price will tell this is the way to go to the auction or otherwise. We have to see what has to be the licensing fee an operator has to pay to enter into this.
Gulraiz: Do you expect the auctioning to be as intense as it was in UK or India or as for 2G in Pakistan or do you think the players will be rational in the bidding?
Mr. Walid: Well! You see first of all for the 3G licensing, I think no body will come from outside and say I want to be the only 3G operator. That will not be the case anyway. The people can’t come to 3G if they have at least started the operation in Pakistan and have seen the market potential in Pakistan. I see more intense competition will be from local operators rather than from outside operators. It will be difficult at this point in time for a third operator to come to Pakistan and start of with 3G service only.
Gulraiz: So, once the licensing is done what would be the safe time for the 3G auction winners to roll out their services in the market?
Mr. Walid: You see here we are talking about our case we are talking of 6 month to 1 year. Most of the equipment are already built to cope with 3G. I think it would take about fairly one year and the operators will start rolling out commercial 3G services.
Gulraiz: So, for the last 3 to 4 years we have been observing massive competition, price wars and tariff wars. Do you think this will be the same case for the 3G?
Mr. Walid: I hope that the operators have learned the lesson. We have learnt this lesson the hard way and we will avoid this price cut and wars which leads to disruptive market and destroying market values, for us and for the consumers by the way, because you see a consumer has to get quality service more so on the 3G. If destroy the quality of service by just killing the price this will not be prudent for us, the operators and to the consumer.
So I would expect that the price war, the intense price war we have seen in the 3G can somehow be avoided for two reasons. There is cost here, it is not going to come for free and their will be limited operators and only competent operators who can enter into this, financially sound operators.
Gulraiz: So, how are you foreseeing the gravity and motivation of all the players and the participation of all the players in this 3g licensing and deployment in Pakistan?
Mr. Walid: Well they all may participate but we know that there are not enough spectrums for everybody. There will be only, I think a few licensees, 2-3 operators depending upon the available spectrum.
Gulraiz: And the general trend is that the revenue from 3G are gained in entertainment and data services for the individuals. So, how do you think 3G launch in Pakistan will benefit the enterprise and cater to the need of the corporate sector?
Mr. Walid: Basically 3G revolves as you rightly said around consumer. The people who want to have internet on the move on the fly on the everywhere, it is broadband internet service. For the enterprise, I do not say that there will be no value. But enterprise is not only looking for 3G why always. Enterprise they are looking at more wider and more abundant solution. They want the fixed, they want the wireless, they want everything. So it will be good as the part of the larger bundle for the enterprise. My point is that it will be part of the larger bundle for the enterprise.
Gulraiz: Ok. So the license being auctioned covers the 3G as well as 4G or LTE. Do you think that some operator will wait and jump to 4G? Would that be a better option?
Mr. Walid: No it’s not going to as easy as that. Yes, we have also being told that this is going to be technology neutral. And perhaps there are some operators will leap forward to 4G, This is understandable.
Gulraiz: So the bidding will be looking into 3G directly?
Mr. Walid: No, it depends as I said here this is not about wiping out what you have done over the last ten years and starting afresh. You are evolving when you go to the 3G we still all the operators even the 4G operators are keeping the 2G and 3G online.
Gulraiz: But the deployment in Pakistan has been delayed?
Mr. Walid: Yes, I am coming to your point. So I am not saying that it’s for 4G or 4G straight. You see today the 4G is tested in a few markets there is no voice over the 4G still available.
So I think people will not, evolving from 3G to 4G will not be difficult. But as I have said here the people will make decisions based on their business model and their target audience or what they want to sell? They want to sell voice+data or they want to go to data only. This will be decided on the business model by the each operator.
Mr. Walid: Well! Talking about opportunities, definitely we always look for opportunities, we all follow opportunities. I always say that this country is always rife and replete with opportunity. But now at this point of time before we go into the licensing regime we see how much will be the license fee? We want to see what other say of these regulations? Perhaps it is a bit premature to talk about opportunities. It could be a challenge to the operators as well. 3G cannot come at a sweet spot in your industry. In other countries people who have launched 3G are facing challenges and tough challenges. So, I would say I hope it is going to be an opportunity but it is too premature at this point of time before we enter into the seeing the real licensing regime. However, to answer the question, of course we all operators know the opportunities the 3G brought in other parts of the world. Definitely it will lead to wider 3G wireless broad band servicing in the country.
Gulraiz: Ok. So, now the licensing is being done. Do you think auctioning is the best way to give out the licensing because you know keeping in view of the very low mobile data penetrated market?
Mr. Walid: Well if they want to go for auctioning or something else, what will be the better when we see the price? The price will tell this is the way to go to the auction or otherwise. We have to see what has to be the licensing fee an operator has to pay to enter into this.
Gulraiz: Do you expect the auctioning to be as intense as it was in UK or India or as for 2G in Pakistan or do you think the players will be rational in the bidding?
Mr. Walid: Well! You see first of all for the 3G licensing, I think no body will come from outside and say I want to be the only 3G operator. That will not be the case anyway. The people can’t come to 3G if they have at least started the operation in Pakistan and have seen the market potential in Pakistan. I see more intense competition will be from local operators rather than from outside operators. It will be difficult at this point in time for a third operator to come to Pakistan and start of with 3G service only.
Gulraiz: So, once the licensing is done what would be the safe time for the 3G auction winners to roll out their services in the market?
Mr. Walid: You see here we are talking about our case we are talking of 6 month to 1 year. Most of the equipment are already built to cope with 3G. I think it would take about fairly one year and the operators will start rolling out commercial 3G services.
Gulraiz: So, for the last 3 to 4 years we have been observing massive competition, price wars and tariff wars. Do you think this will be the same case for the 3G?
Mr. Walid: I hope that the operators have learned the lesson. We have learnt this lesson the hard way and we will avoid this price cut and wars which leads to disruptive market and destroying market values, for us and for the consumers by the way, because you see a consumer has to get quality service more so on the 3G. If destroy the quality of service by just killing the price this will not be prudent for us, the operators and to the consumer.
So I would expect that the price war, the intense price war we have seen in the 3G can somehow be avoided for two reasons. There is cost here, it is not going to come for free and their will be limited operators and only competent operators who can enter into this, financially sound operators.
Gulraiz: So, how are you foreseeing the gravity and motivation of all the players and the participation of all the players in this 3g licensing and deployment in Pakistan?
Mr. Walid: Well they all may participate but we know that there are not enough spectrums for everybody. There will be only, I think a few licensees, 2-3 operators depending upon the available spectrum.
Gulraiz: And the general trend is that the revenue from 3G are gained in entertainment and data services for the individuals. So, how do you think 3G launch in Pakistan will benefit the enterprise and cater to the need of the corporate sector?
Mr. Walid: Basically 3G revolves as you rightly said around consumer. The people who want to have internet on the move on the fly on the everywhere, it is broadband internet service. For the enterprise, I do not say that there will be no value. But enterprise is not only looking for 3G why always. Enterprise they are looking at more wider and more abundant solution. They want the fixed, they want the wireless, they want everything. So it will be good as the part of the larger bundle for the enterprise. My point is that it will be part of the larger bundle for the enterprise.
Gulraiz: Ok. So the license being auctioned covers the 3G as well as 4G or LTE. Do you think that some operator will wait and jump to 4G? Would that be a better option?
Mr. Walid: No it’s not going to as easy as that. Yes, we have also being told that this is going to be technology neutral. And perhaps there are some operators will leap forward to 4G, This is understandable.
Gulraiz: So the bidding will be looking into 3G directly?
Mr. Walid: No, it depends as I said here this is not about wiping out what you have done over the last ten years and starting afresh. You are evolving when you go to the 3G we still all the operators even the 4G operators are keeping the 2G and 3G online.
Gulraiz: But the deployment in Pakistan has been delayed?
Mr. Walid: Yes, I am coming to your point. So I am not saying that it’s for 4G or 4G straight. You see today the 4G is tested in a few markets there is no voice over the 4G still available.
So I think people will not, evolving from 3G to 4G will not be difficult. But as I have said here the people will make decisions based on their business model and their target audience or what they want to sell? They want to sell voice+data or they want to go to data only. This will be decided on the business model by the each operator.
