The Pakistan government is developing a comprehensive roadmap aimed at making 5G internet services commercially available to consumers in 2022-23, a media report said on Sunday.

In an annual report, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said the roadmap is targeted at auctioning "spectrum for 5G services in fiscal year 2023", The Express Tribune newspaper reported.

Federal Minister for IT and Telecommunication Aminul Haque said the government has planned to launch 5G technology by December 2022, but experts in different fields are still sceptical, believing the country will take a much longer time to roll out the next-generation technology.

GSM Association estimates the economic contribution of the mobile industry in Pakistan will reach $24 billion, contributing 6.6 per cent to total gross domestic product (GDP) by 2023.

In Pakistan, 98 per cent of the households own a mobile phone whereas penetration of mobile services reached 81.1 per cent at the end of October 2020, with 172.3 million mobile subscriptions, according to The Express Tribune report.

Broadband subscriptions showed impressive growth trends of 17 per cent during FY20, crossing the 90.1 million mark in October 2020, whereas 4G subscriptions registered an exponential 60 per cent growth in FY20.

Resultantly, total broadband penetration in Pakistan reached 42.4 per cent by the end of October 2020.

With the expansion of 3G and 4G services, an increase of 77 per cent was seen in data usage for FY20, The Express Tribune report added.

(IANS)