Pakistan's 5G towers cluster in three cities, and only Jazz is past halfway to its site target
The IT minister puts 5G users at 1.8 million across 24 cities. Her site count shows Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad holding 58 percent of the towers.
Pakistan has about 1.8 million 5G users across 24 cities, IT and Telecommunication Minister Shaza Fatima Khawaja told the National Assembly Standing Committee on IT and Telecom, in reports published on 3 November. In mid August the figure was 1.3 million across 23 cities. That is a gain of about half a million users, or 38 percent, in under three months.
The latest site count the minister has given is 1,782 across the same 24 cities: 1,015 for Jazz, 640 for Zong and 127 for Ufone. Karachi has 385, Lahore 373 and Islamabad 276. Those three cities hold 1,034 sites, or 58 percent of the total. The committee chairman pointed out that Sukkur, Sindh's third largest city, has only two 5G sites, and another member said the rollout in Sindh has centred on Karachi.
Against the 2,000 site target
Phase I of the commercial rollout, which runs from 2026 to 2028, requires each licensed operator to build 2,000 5G sites, according to PTA documents reported by APP. Measured against that, Jazz is 51 percent of the way, Zong 32 percent and Ufone 6 percent. The deadline is 2028, so none of this is a shortfall yet. It does show how uneven the starting pace is, and that the operator with the most sites is the only one past the halfway mark.
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A 5G user needs three things at once: a compatible handset, a nearby site and a plan that uses it. The minister has said existing 4G SIM cards do not need replacing, but the cheapest locally available 5G phone costs about Rs36,000. Adoption will therefore follow handset prices as much as tower counts.
Coverage is the harder constraint. Mid band 5G reaches less ground from each tower than 4G on lower bands, which is established radio physics, so a city needs many more sites before coverage feels continuous. Sukkur's two sites cannot do that. Outside the three largest cities, most 5G users will connect only in patches.
Member Asiya Ishaq told the committee that even 4G had not worked properly since 5G services were introduced. The proceedings did not establish that 5G caused this. Drive test results from before and after a site goes live would settle it. The minister named tower theft, diesel supply and generators as operating problems.
It is not stated whether the 1.8 million counts active users or compatible devices on the network. Whatever it counts, the arithmetic of the target is plain: to reach 2,000 sites each by 2028, Ufone must add 1,873, Zong 1,360 and Jazz 985.
