ISLAMABAD: The chairman of a Pakistani parliamentary panel overseeing technology said on Wednesday that a locally developed messaging application for government officials has completed successful trials and will be rolled out in phases, even as lawmakers on his committee voiced strong dissatisfaction with Internet connectivity during a hearing a day earlier.
Pakistani officials announced last year local engineers had developed and successfully tested the government messaging platform — known as Beep — which is intended to reduce reliance on foreign applications and strengthen data security by keeping official communications within the country.
“Work on Beep, a Pakistani messaging app, was initiated in 2021 when I was serving as the minister of information technology,” Syed Amin-ul-Haque, Chairman National Assembly Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunication, told Arab News. “The app, which is ready now, is planned to be launched in three phases.”
“In the first phase, it was used on a trial basis within the ministry, and this phase — a trial phase — has been successfully completed,” he said. “Following this, in the second phase, it will soon be launched across all 44 ministries for official correspondence. In the third phase, the platform will be made available to the public.”
Amin-ul-Haque said Beep offers text, audio and video messaging facilities, as well as document-sharing features, and described data localization as its key strength.
“Its most significant aspect is that all of its data will be stored within Pakistan and will not go to another country, which is the case with other messaging applications,” he added.
A senior official from the National Information Technology Board (NITB) told the parliamentary committee on Tuesday the final deadline for the Beep rollout was June 30, 2026.
In an official statement issued after the committee meeting, lawmakers praised the NITB, calling its performance commendable and its projects aligned with the broader national interest.
The statement said the committee also expressed dissatisfaction with the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority’s performance, noting that complaints raised in successive meetings largely related to the quality of Internet services and that no significant improvement had been observed so far.
It said official assessments portraying services as satisfactory did not reflect ground realities, as the public faced “severe difficulties” accessing Internet services, with connectivity in some areas described as almost non-existent.
Lawmakers called for the forthcoming 5G spectrum auction to be conducted in a fair and transparent manner, reiterated that the auction should be held in Pakistani rupees, and said spectrum prices should not be set unnecessarily high. Any concessions granted to telecom operators, the committee said, must be tied to improvements in network and infrastructure.
Pakistani users across the country have frequently complained of sluggish 4G Internet connections in recent months, citing disruptions to calls on messaging platform WhatsApp.
Last year, media reports said the government was installing an Internet firewall to monitor and regulate online content, prompting concern among digital rights activists.
The PTA has rejected assertions that a national firewall was responsible for disruptions, saying slow Internet speeds were due to outdated infrastructure and rising data consumption.
