Special Communications Organization (SCOM) operates mainly in the regions of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, and has 1.42 million subscribers.
[2] Recently in May 2017, the Pakistani government decided to lower tariffs and taxes on cellular services as well as on mobile phones.
The reasons for this decision included years of pressure from the nation's top mobile operators and a World Bank report pointing out Pakistan's high taxing of telecom services in the region.
Karin Astrid Siegmann pointed out this disparity; 40 percent of female users have to ask permission from the male owners to make calls.
One political party, called the PTI (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf), was composed of newer castes (Khan, Hashmi, Alvi, and Qureshi).
There is an ambitious undertaking called the Universal Services Fund which would aim to provide broadband coverage to the whole nation by 2018.