The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority’s (PTA) revenue increased by 17 per cent to Rs850 billion, comparing the last year, Chairman Major General (retd) Hafeezur Rehman told caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar on Friday.

Rehman had called on Kakar in Islamabad where he presented the annual report of the PTA. It will be uploaded on the PTA website on January 29.

He added that the access to cellular services in the country had reached 90 per cent.

The number of cellular consumers had touched 192 million and high-speed broadband users reached 130 million during 2023, he added.

The prime minister lauded the services of the PTA chairman and his team in extending mobile phone and internet services to the common man.

In December 2022, the-then federal IT and Telecommunication Syed Aminul Haque said each Pakistani would have a mobile phone soon.

“But today in 2022, as of November 13, mobile phone subscribers have increased from 160 million to 195 million,” he said at the inaugural ceremony of the Pakistan-ITU Digital Inclusive Week in Islamabad on December 12, 2022.

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The PTA gets the data from mobile sellers and telecom operators, who provide SIMs for communication. The authority quarterly releases its data pertaining to mobile phone subscribers.

In the recent past, Netblocks, an independent observer, has reported that social media platforms were down in Pakistan amid the PTI’s virtual rally.

But the PTA confirmed that the recent internet outages were due to ‘upgradation’ of a Web Management System which will go on for two to three months and that the contracts for this process were made by internet operators.