Report by Engineering Post
Pakistan is working on plans to attain about 60 percent fiberization in next three years, only 16 percent of the towers were presently fiberized.
According to the information available from the official sources in this regard, the federal government was also working to significantly expand fiber connectivity at the household level thereby increasing fiberized home passes from around 2.1 million to at least 10 million within the next two years. These targets formed part of the country’s broader national fiberization strategy which aimed at strengthening connectivity, expanding broadband access , and enabling digital infrastructure across various sectors.
As regards progress in the international connectivity, the sources pointedly stated that Pakistan has successfully landed two to three submarine internet cables, two of these were expected to be operationalized within this year 2026, while another will be activated next year, these developments will quite expectedly significantly improve the country’s global internet bandwidth and connectivity resilience. Pakistan has also signed agreements with some Central Asian countries which aimed at positioning Pakistan as a regional data transit hub. Pakistan has already operationalized data transit routes from China to Karachi through the national fiber back home , while alternative connectivity routes were being developed via Central Asia and the Wakhan Corridor thereby strengthening regional digital integration. The federal government was also working on plans to develop a connectivity linking Karachi to Central Asia, the Caspian region, Azerbaijan, and Europe, strengthening Pakistan’ role in global digital transit networks.
Pakistan’s connectivity structure somehow continued to be heavily dependent on mobile broadband, with around 98 percent users relying on wireless networks. Only about 2 percent of the users currently have access to fiber-based networks, signaling a significant infrastructure gap on which the federal government was working on priority basis.
