Pakistan goes 5G: Zong introduces high-speed network

April 1, 2026 (MLN): Zong has officially introduced commercial 5G services across more than 16 cities in Pakistan including Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, and Quetta marked a transformative milestone in the country's digital journey.

At a media briefing, Umar Siddique, Director of Marketing Segments at Zong, outlined the real-world impact of the rollout, noting that streaming speeds are projected to improve by three to five times compared to current standards.

Building on Pakistan's first 5G trial conducted back in 2019, Zong has since demonstrated network speeds surpassing 1.4Gbps, cementing its reputation as the nation's foremost technology service enterprise.

To sustain this momentum, Zong has committed to deploying and upgrading over 1,000 5G sites nationwide in 2026, underpinned by globally benchmarked infrastructure and the institutional backing of China Mobile Limited the world's largest telecommunications enterprise.

The actual gains in speed will vary depending on how much spectrum each operator allocates. Crucially, Umar Siddique emphasized that the benefits of 5G won't be limited to the roughly 5 million users already on 5G-capable handsets out of approximately 200m mobile connections in Pakistan.

Even subscribers on existing networks will notice a tangible improvement, as the additional spectrum alleviates network congestion across the board.

As the rollout scales, increased demand is also expected to push device manufacturers toward bringing more affordable 5G handsets to market.

Umar Siddique further stressed that issues such as voice distortion and video lag during calls should become a thing of the past, as Zong simultaneously expands its tower network to improve signal quality, coverage depth, and call reliability nationwide.

The 5G launch arrives at a critical time for home connectivity. With only around 5m households connected via fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) and nearly half of those routed through informal operators there remains a significant gap in fixed broadband access.

Zong's Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) offering presents a practical alternative, delivering high-speed internet through wireless routers and reducing dependency on costly fibre infrastructure.

This shift is especially timely given that average screen time in Pakistan has surged from roughly three hours to over six hours per day in just the past year, with further growth anticipated.

For Pakistan's expanding IT export sector and its large freelance workforce, unreliable connectivity has long been a bottleneck disrupting real-time collaboration with international clients.

5G's combination of higher speeds and lower latency promises smoother remote work experiences, potentially strengthening Pakistan's position as a rising global technology hub.

Beyond personal use, widespread CCTV adoption across Pakistani households is already laying the groundwork for smart home and smart city applications from motion sensors and automated systems to large-scale urban infrastructure projects with 5G serving as the essential enabler.

Zong's 5G is not merely a network upgrade it is the infrastructure upon which a truly digital Pakistan will be built.

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