Pakistan's Mobile Cellular Policy : Comparative Analysis of Policy Approaches for Telecom Competition

Scale and scope of a policy remains one the most fascinating and complex issues any policy maker can address. Despite institutionalization of development, implementation and evaluation of policy framework approaches, policy-making for telecommunication regulation and competition remains a key challenge. To achieve diverse set of goals, different countries take different policy routes for sector development. So is the case of Pakistan, where the country has chosen an interesting mobile-sector policy approach towards introduction of liberalization and competition. Has the country taken a wise decision to announce service-specific policy approach or should a macro-sector development approach been a better choice? To answer this important question, the author has compared telecom policy approaches of Pakistan with India and Malaysia. This paper chooses to comparative methodology to determine setting scope of economic, regulatory and technology perspectives for policy choices