PTA selects NERA, a US consultancy firm for Pakistan’s 5G spectrum auction

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has selected NERA, a prominent United States-based consultancy firm, to provide expert guidance on the release of IMT spectrum as Pakistan prepares for its Next Generation Mobile Broadband Services. NERA won the contract with a financial bid of $0.75 million, having tied for top technical ratings while presenting the most competitive price.

Since the PTA aims to conduct the 5G spectrum auction by April 2025, NERA, which is well-known for its telecom and economic modeling, will assist the PTA. Another international company involved in spectrum management is NERA located in the United States but with regional offices in Europe and the Far East.

Out of five global companies that tendered their bids, NERA and Aetha Consulting Limited coordinated most of the technical assessments. However, the bid offered by NERA was much lower than other competitors and this made it awarded the tender to be the consultant.

Other firms that bid for the project were Detecon Consulting FZ-LLC, Frontier Economics Limited, and KomKonsult (Private) Limited. The PTA completed the financial assessments on October 3, 2024, and gave NERA a seven working days response time after sending them a Letter of Intent (LOI).

NERA will provide recommendations on the key policy directions and required changes to support infrastructure development and promote broadband deployment in Pakistan. Some of the assignments will include a comparative analysis of the current cellular and IMT spectrum allocations with those of the regional countries.

They will also give a phased plan on the sale of the paired and unpaired spectrum in the various frequency bands of 700 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2300 MHz, 2600 MHz, and 3500 MHz.

NERA will assist in establishing the spectrum pricing, evaluate the options in both USD and PKR for the next three years, and provide a flexible payment structure. Their expertise will also include the development of a valuation report of base price for both paired and unpaired spectrum bands which will prepare Pakistan for the transition to the next era of connectivity, the 5G era.