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ZONG has extended its services in four remote districts of Balochistan under the Universal Service Fund’s (USF) Rural Telecom Programme to provide basic telephony and data services to the more inaccessible areas of Pakistan.
The first phase of the project has been completed through which the Mauzas of Naseerabad, Jhal Magsi, Jaffarbad and Bolan now have access to ZONG services.
The contract under the USF was awarded to ZONG in July 2009 with the objective to provide telephony and data services to approximately 0.5 million people. The project aims to deliver the social and economic benefits of information and communication technology to the masses, thus helping to achieve the Government’s objective of breaking the poverty cycle and eliminating the social divide.
In addition to expanding their basic services, ZONG will also create PCO and tele-centers to these areas in Baluchistan which has traditionally been the least technologically advanced of the provinces in Pakistan. These facilities will ensure that even those people who cannot afford handsets have access to information and communication technology services.
Tele-centers in particular will ensure that the local people would be able to avail Edge data services for internet browsing. They would also have access to printing, scanning, faxing and photocopying facilities.
Salman Wassay, Head of Marketing, ZONG said that ZONG had made a commitment to provide quality ICT services to varying segments of the Pakistan population in particular the un-served segments.
He said, “ICT is now as much a right as education and medicine and we at ZONG will do our utmost to extend this right to as many people as possible.”
USF is a government organization under the Ministry of IT and the Senate with the mandate of expanding telecom services in the un-served areas of the country. USF is operational with essentially the same mandate in many developing countries including parts of Europe and North America under different names.
