For years, telecom was a growth industry in Pakistan,` Aamir Ibrahim, CEO of Jazz, says in an interview, `But the reality is that it is a bit of a difficult business and usually underperforms compared to the other businesses.` Under the leadership of Mr Ibrahim, Jazz has transformed from a traditional telecom company into a full-fledged serviceco, serving more than 100 million customers across financial services, entertainment and digital platforms beyond connectivity.

And yet, the business model of mobile operators in Pakistan is heavily burdened: massive upfront payments for spectrum and licences, recurring levies to the industry regulator and high taxation eat away much of their revenue, leaving little for reinvestment or delivering shareholder value. On top of this, the global rise of `overthe-top` platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook, etc has fundamentally shifted customer behaviour.

`Connectivity is essential but no longer profitable enough. Rising costs of infrastructure upgrades and falling revenues from core telecom services created a structural mismatch. People`s loyalty is not to telecom operators; it is to mobile brands and apps, so the telecom business doesn`t make sense in Pakistan,` Mr Ibrahim muses.

This realisation marked a major inflection point in its transformation: Jazz stopped thinking of itself as a telecom company or even a tech company and began reimagining itself as a service company.

Mr Ibrahim believes that technology and connectivity are enablers of a wider service ecosystem. `Our transition into a serviceco has completely reshaped our identity.

We see ourselves as serving needs across five key verticals: financial services, entertainment, education, health, and e-com-merce and ride hailing. Whatever our customers need, we will strive to meet their expectations.` Another critical inflection point came with a rethink of telecom infrastructure. Duplication of networks among four telcos is inefficient and wasteful in a foreign-exchange-starved economy. To address this, Jazz recently sold its tower infrastructure, allowing shared usage and reducing redundancy. `Telecoms can also share their spectrum their active infrastructure of information highways. It should have been the job of netcos to build and manage connectivity networks while telcos focused on quality of services and customer offerings.` The government has failed to encourage shared telecom infrastructure and lower barriers for the industry by easing spectrum scarcity a tactic used to make money from spectrum sales by forcing operators to compete aggressively.

In contrast, countries around the world are distributing spectrum more liberally in some cases even free recognising that expanding internet access drives GDP growth, boosts exports and strengthens the overall economy.

`The problems with the internet in Pakistan low speeds, patchyservices, poor quality, etc are not because we don`t invest. Every year, we invest between $200-250 million in infrastructure upgrades.

The real challenge is that the number of customers is growing rapidly, and with better handsets, people are consuming more and more data. Yet, we haven`t widened our `information highway` to accommodate this massive surge in usage.

To put it in perspective, the spectrum available per person in Japan is four times higher than in Pakistan.

`Now is the time to rethink the spectrum policy. Pakistan still has a lot of unallocated spectrum that remains unused, which is delaying Pakistan`s digital growth.` Mr Ibrahim, who is part of a task force set up by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to recommend ways to transform Pakistan into a cashless economy, insists that Pakistan is undergoing a change quietly. Every day, around 20mdigital banking transactions take place, and the number of unique banking accounts has already crossed 100m. Financial inclusion has expanded significantly since the introduction of mobile wallets that have opened the doors offinancial services to millions who were previously excluded.

Yet, despite this progress, Pakistan continues to lag behind comparable economies. India, which started this journey later than Pakistan, now conducts 20-25 per cent of retail payments digitally compared to Pakistan`s meagre 5pc. Kenya runs almost entirely on M-Pesa. Even Bangladesh is slightly ahead of us.

`The problem is not technology but taxation. Many retailers resist digital payments because of the FBR, as merchants wish to stay outside the tax net. A reduction in tax rates to 4-5pc could prove far more effective than coercion, and the government would end up collecting more revenue. Expanding financial inclusion was the first step. The next stage bringing retailers into the digital net is where the real battle will be fought.` Challenges notwithstanding, the Jazz CEO plans to expand existingbusinesses and diversify into new ones in the next three to five years.

His future strategic priority is to reduce dependency on traditional telecom services to 50pc and complete Jazz`s transformation into a full-service company within threeyears.

`We are doubling down on financial services. These services are set to become our second-largest line of business after telecom and internet connectivity. We plan to get a commercial bank or digital bank licence; besides, we are going big on insurance services by acquiring an insurance company.

`Beyond that, we will focus on education, healthcare and entertainment sectors that touch the daily lives of millions. We intend to invest in more spectrum and 5G technology. But our position is clear: if spectrum is allocated properly, even 4G can address most of Pakistan`s connectivity challenges.

Customers don`t really care about whether the service is labelled 4G or 5G. What they want is better speed, stronger signals, and reliable coverage even in their basements. The real use cases for 5G like autonomous cars or fully connected ecosystems are still years away in Pakistan.` Moreover, Jazz is actively integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into its services. `Al`s importance and usage will only grow across every sector and area in the years ahead. We are already collaborating with NUST [National University of Sciences & Technology] to develop a local large language model. But here we face a challenge: data scarcity. Al systems learn from records and datasets available online, and in Pakistan, much of our critical information has not yet been digitised. To truly unlock the potential of AI, we must first digitise Pakistan`s knowledge base.` The business strategy transformation has also accompanied a cultural change at Jazz. `We have worked hard to build an environment where hierarchy doesn`t matter; knowledge and merit make our hierarchy. Creating a culture where innovation and bold decisions are rewarded has been a key to our journey.`m