The Internet in Pakistan has been available since the early 1990s. Pakistan has over 140 million internet users, making it the 7th-largest population of internet users in the world.
Information and communications technology
Information and communications technology (ICT) is an extensional term for information technology (IT) that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications (telephone lines and wireless signals) and computer ...
(ICT) is one of the fastest growing industries in the country. In 2001 just 1.3% of the population used the Internet. By 2006 this figure had grown to 6.5% and in 2012 to 10.0%. As of July 2021; the percentage of internet users in Pakistan is 54%, which translates into approximately 118 million citizens having access to internet.
In 2015 Government of Pakistan (GoP) recognised that Telecommunication has become one of the dominant sectors in the economy, contributing to the well-being of society and a major contributor to GDP thus introduced a Telecommunication Policy 2015. The Telecom Policy 2015 aims to facilitate the attainment of an all-embracing national agenda and to transform Pakistan into an economically vibrant, knowledge-based, middle-income country by 2025.
Statistics
* Internet users: 147 million broadband subscribers as of March 2025
* Fixed broadband: 3 million subscribers as of March 2025
*
Mobile broadband
Mobile broadband is the marketing term for Wireless broadband, wireless Internet access via mobile network, mobile (cell) networks. Access to the network can be made through a portable modem, wireless modem, or a Tablet computer, tablet/smartp ...
: 143 million subscribers as of March 2025
* Operational ISPs: 213 as of April 2025
*
Top level domain
A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains i ...
: .pk"Pakistan Country Report" ''The World Factbook'', Central Intelligence Agency, United States, 14 June 2011.
Broadband
There are over 200 internet service providers in Pakistan. Fiber based home broadband has seen rapid adoption in Pakistan, with less than 70,000 subscribers in 2018, that number has grown to 1.9 million as of March 2025.
High speed broadband is offered by all major ISPs with plans ranging from 10 Mbit/s to 1 Gbit/s.
* FlashFiber (FTTH brand by
PTCL
Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd., commonly known as PTCL, is the national telecommunication company in Pakistan.Cyber Internet Services, Cybernet)
* Nayatel
* Transworld Home (a subsidiary of
Transworld Associates
Transworld Associates is a Tier 1 network, Tier-1 provider based in Pakistan serving as a backbone for IP connectivity in Pakistan. It is a joint-venture between Orastar Limited and the Oman based OMZEST Group. Transworld owns and operates the 1,3 ...
)
Internet Backhaul
Pakistan maintains international connectivity through seven fiber-optic
submarine communications cables
A submarine communications cable is a cable laid on the seabed between land-based stations to carry telecommunication signals across stretches of ocean and sea. The first submarine communications cables were laid beginning in the 1850s and car ...
, with three new cables to be added in the next 2 years.
Anti-competitive practices
PTCL has a history of engaging in
anti-competitive practices
Anti-competitive practices are business or government practices that prevent or reduce Competition (economics), competition in a market. Competition law, Antitrust laws ensure businesses do not engage in competitive practices that harm other, u ...
since the early 2000s, it has been taken to court several times over
predatory pricing
Predatory pricing, also known as price slashing, is a commercial pricing strategy which involves reducing the retail prices to a level lower than competitors to eliminate competition. Selling at lower prices than a competitor is known as underc ...
and
collusion
Collusion is a deceitful agreement or secret cooperation between two or more parties to limit open competition by deceiving, misleading or defrauding others of their legal right. Collusion is not always considered illegal. It can be used to att ...
to maintain its monopoly and force competitors out of the broadband market. In 2013, LINKdotNET, a subsidiary of Mobilink (now
Jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...
) was forced to shut down citing 'market conditions' and transfer all its residential DSL users to PTCL DSL.
Inadequate infrastructure and Tier-1 operators abusing their dominant position are the two primary factors adversely impacting internet speeds, encompassing technology, available backhaul, and international internet bandwidth. This is the primary reason why Pakistan's internet speeds lag behind those of neighbouring countries and even some less developed nations worldwide. With PTCL and TWA sharing a
duopoly
A duopoly (from Greek , ; and , ) is a type of oligopoly where two firms have dominant or exclusive control over a market, and most (if not all) of the competition within that market occurs directly between them.
Duopoly is the most commonly ...
of internet backhaul by operating majority of the submarine communications cables coming in to the country, both networks engage in anti-competitive behaviour with price gouging and illegal blocking of Tier-2 ISPs that purchase bandwidth through resellers.
Mobile Broadband
In areas where fixed line broadband is not available due to poor infrastructure, LTE based mobile broadband is used. Mobile broadband crossed 100 million subscribers in April 2021.
Starting in 2019, three of the four local mobile networks began rolling out LTE-A and other technological advancements such as 256-QAM and 4x4 MIMO to cell sites across the country, as part of their efforts to improve the user experience for mobile broadband subscribers.
On 22 August 2019, Pakistan became the first South Asian country to test 5G services. The successful tests were conducted by Pakistani telecom operator Zong.
Language
Most Internet usage in Pakistan is still in English. Many
Urdu
Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...
based newspapers maintain an Urdu presence on the web, however, common usage is often done in romanized Urdu.
Right of way draft rules 2018
Major hindrance in providing internet services in Pakistan is acquiring Right of Way from public and private authorities (Owners of Right of Way) Over the last few years, there have been many instances reported to PTA and MoIT&T related to Right-of-Way (RoW) disputes. These have come from telecom operators who cite undue demands from various public bodies (owners of RoW). MoIT&T began a process of consultation with all relevant stakeholders to develop a standard mechanism for addressing the long-standing issue of RoW being faced by telecom operators and has prepared draft RoW rules. The Telecom Authority (PTA) is actively pursuing and participating in finalizing the RoW Rules in the larger interest of the telecom sector.
E-commerce
Pakistan e-commerce industry is worth an estimated US$4 billion.
According to the Oxford Dictionary, e-commerce refers to commercial transactions conducted electronically on the internet.
Pakistan's first e-commerce company was started in 2001 with the establishment of beliscity.com by Abid Beli. Since then the market has grown steadily until 2012, which was an inflection point in the industry.
In 2018, Government of Pakistan reformulated the Digital Pakistan Policy: one that takes into account its increasingly transformed role across all sectors of socio-economic development; their accelerated digitization, and transformational modernization into integrated components of a holistic knowledge based economy. With this in mind, Ministry of IT & Telecom (MoIT) has formulated this policy document based on a multi-stakeholder model which includes infrastructure development, digitization including e-Agriculture, e-Health, e-Energy, e-Commerce, e-Justice, ICT Education, IoT, FinTech, Artificial Intelligence & Robotics, Cloud Computing and Big Data