ISLAMABAD: Pakistan plans to complete a major telecom spectrum auction at the beginning of the next year, paving the way for the country’s first rollout of 5G services, Information Technology Minister Shaza Fatima said on Tuesday.

The planned auction comes amid mounting pressure on Pakistan’s telecom networks, with users and businesses complaining of slow Internet speeds and frequent disruptions as limited spectrum struggles to serve a population of about 240 million.

“Our effort is to complete this auction by the last week of January or the first week of February,” the minister told a joint news conference. “The quality of Internet service in Pakistan is not at par with international best practices or even regional standards, and one of the fundamental reasons for this is that spectrum is simply not available.”

She said Pakistan’s entire population currently operates on about 274 megahertz of spectrum, compared with around 600 megahertz in Bangladesh, leading to congestion that she likened to “trying to run eight lanes of traffic through two lanes.”

The minister said the government plans to auction nearly 600 megahertz of spectrum — the largest such auction in Pakistan’s history — including several frequency bands that have never been auctioned in the country before.

The move would improve 3G and 4G services and introduce 5G in Pakistan for the first time, she added.

Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said earlier at the news conference that the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) had approved recommendations for the auction prepared by the Spectrum Advisory Committee after extensive consultations with telecom operators, regulators and consumers.

“Unsold spectrum directly translates into economic loss,” he said, adding that the committee had engaged a reputable international consultant, National Economic Research Associates, to advise on spectrum pricing, payment terms and auction design based on international benchmarks.

He said the government had reviewed those recommendations using what he described as a “Pakistan-first lens” before securing ECC approval, with the proposal now set to go to the cabinet for final clearance.