The telecom sector’s titanic status in Pakistan prevails as a recent reportreleased by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) shows that thesector’s contribution to the national exchequer witnessed a boost of 129percent in 2020 as compared to 2019, despite the fact that the economy wasburdened by the COVID-19 pandemic.

As per details from PTA’s *Annual Report 2020* released today, the telecomsector proved yet again that it is one of the most valuable drivers of thenational economy. Over the course of FY2020, it contributed a tremendousamount of Rs278 billion to the national exchequer, as compared to Rs121billion back in FY2019. This represents a year-on-year growth of 129percent.

When you think about it, the year 2020 actually held massive potential fortelecom growth in general, as people all over the nation had no choice butto stay cooped up in their homes and rely on data packages and Internetservices to stay connected to the world beyond.

“*A surge in demand for telecom services due to lockdown resulted insignificant growth not only in subscriber base but also in the usage oftelecom services,*” the report stated. “*Today, data usage stands at 4,498Peta Bytes (FY2020) as compared to 2,545 Peta Bytes (FY2019), showing agrowth of over 77pc. This substantial growth would not have been possibleif the networks were not upgraded.*”

As of now, the country possesses an international bandwidth connectivity of3.1TB and around 47,000 cell sites, out of which 90 percent are 4G-enabled.