Pakistan's cell phone population would cross 30 million mark within next three years, as during the current year the number of mobile phone users surpassed 15 million, Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA) officials said. Due to tremendous growth in Pakistan's cell phone population, they believed that the number of mobile phone users would double within the next three years. In 2004, the number of cell phone users in Pakistan was 5.022 million. Todate it has crossed 15 million, which reflects that over 10 million new cell phone connections have been sold. Officials said that the growth rate is much above the telecom regulator's as well as the government's expectation, which had estimated an addition of mere three million new users during the year 2005. At present six mobile phone companies - Mobilink, U-fone, Paktel, Instaphone, Warid and Telenor - are operating in Pakistan. --more 1341 Local Time 1041 GMT
