The Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunication held a meeting in which the Chairman of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority revealed that one phase of the 5G spectrum auction has been completed.
The PTA chairman added that telecom companies have already imported 5G equipment and that all three telecom operators are ready to begin 5G testing immediately.
He said telecom companies have already purchased 5G spectrum, while the second phase of the process, spectrum positioning, is scheduled for bidding on Thursday.
The committee also discussed the security of data held by NADRA after a question was raised about whether NADRA’s data was available on the dark web.
Officials from NADRA told the committee that NADRA’s data is not present on the dark web.
They said that around 1,400 firewalls have been purchased and installed at important locations to strengthen cybersecurity.
However, officials acknowledged that some NADRA-related data had leaked in the past. They clarified that the leak did not originate from NADRA itself but from other institutions that held the data.
NADRA officials also told the committee that the authority’s data is not completely secure.
