Karachi leads sluggish 5G rollout

Rollout remains painfully slow; city tops with 257 sites but covers only quarter of target

KARACHI:

Karachi, marred by a plethora of infrastructural problems, has emerged as the frontrunner in Pakistan's early 5G deployment, hosting more operational sites than any other city even as the nationwide rollout continues to confront infrastructure, densification and accessibility hurdles five months after commercial services began.

Overall, however, the pace of 5G rollout in Pakistan, which is already many years late compared to other countries, is extremely sluggish.

According to the latest available figures from an official document and Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA)-linked updates as of early August 2026, Karachi accounts for 257 active 5G sites – Jazz operating 119, Zong 111 and Ufone 27. This places it ahead of Lahore (241 sites) and Islamabad (192 sites). The city's Phase-I target stands at 1,000 sites, meaning current deployment represents roughly a quarter of the initial goal. Nationwide, operators had activated between 1,136 and more than 1,200 5G sites across 23 cities by mid-August, supporting approximately 1.3 million users.

Commercial 5G services went live in March 2026 following the spectrum auction on March 10 that raised about $507 million and allocated mid-band frequencies to Jazz, Zong and Ufone. Zong and Jazz moved quickest into commercial operation.

"In Karachi, coverage remains concentrated in high-demand zones including multiple phases of DHA, Clifton, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Bahria Town, areas around Jinnah International Airport, universities such as IBA and NED, and select commercial corridors," said Syed Ramis Ali, Corporate Brand & Communications Manager at Zong in a media briefing.

Real-world speeds in well-covered outdoor locations typically range from 100 to 400 Mbps, with community tests reporting median downloads around 220 Mbps – substantially faster than concurrent 4G averages but far below the multi-gigabit peaks recorded in controlled trials, said Saira Mirza, Deputy Director Corporate Brand Communications & Sustainability at Zong.

The concentration of sites in Pakistan's largest economic hub reflects both commercial logic and policy pressure. Karachi generates a disproportionate share of national economic activity, data demand and enterprise interest in low-latency applications for logistics, manufacturing, fintech and cloud services. Operators have prioritised these high-ARPU corridors while expanding selectively into other neighbourhoods.

Yet the numbers also reveal the scale of remaining work. Karachi's 257 sites against a 1,000-site Phase-I target, and the national total of roughly 1,100 to 1,200 sites against an overall Phase-I goal of 2,632, underscore that densification is still in its early stages. Coverage is patchy even within served areas; indoor performance and street-level consistency vary with building materials, line-of-sight and network loading.

"Communication gap is the major problem for us," said Hafiz Muhammad Imran, Deputy Director Engineering (South) at Zong. "We are not informed when a building is in the planning phase; instead, we hear about it once the building is constructed. At that point, due to congestion, residents begin to complain. We then take steps to improve our system based on the area's population growth."

Outside the priority zones, many parts of the city still rely on 4G networks.

Structural constraints compound the challenge. Fibre backhaul remains a recognised bottleneck: only a minority of cell sites across Pakistan were fibre-connected in recent assessments, forcing many towers to depend on microwave links less suited to 5G's capacity and latency requirements. Right-of-way delays, high capital costs, power reliability and the need for denser small-cell deployments further slow progress.

Device compatibility has improved since the early months, but affordable 5G handsets are not yet universal, limiting the addressable market.

Regulators and operators acknowledge the gap. The PTA monitors site activation and quality of service closely, while parliamentary committees have previously flagged the need for faster expansion in Karachi specifically. Operators continue to add sites rapidly; the national total more than doubled between July and early August, but the trajectory still leaves substantial work before city-wide, consistent 5G becomes the norm rather than a premium experience in selected districts.

For consumers and businesses in covered pockets of Karachi, the practical benefits are already visible: faster downloads, improved video and gaming performance, and a foundation for fixed-wireless access and enterprise private networks. For the majority of the city's residents, however, the technology's promise remains unevenly distributed.