Formerly known as Mobilink, the company was founded in 1994 as a joint venture between Saif Group and Motorola Inc. In February 2001, Egypt based Orascom Investment Holding bought Motorola’s shares in Mobilink to become the majority shareholder with 69% control. Then in June 2007, Orascom further purchased the remaining shares under Saif Group’s control to become Mobilink’s 100% owner. In November 2015, Orascom Investment Holding announced the 100% acquisition of Pakistan’s Warid Telecom, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Group. Completed in July 2016 after due approvals, the first ever local telecom company acquisition created a combined subscriber base of 50 million. Following the merger of Mobilink and Warid, Mobilink was officially rebranded to Jazz in 2017. As of 2020, Jazz has 62 million subscribers in Pakistan, among which 18.2 million are 4G subscribers, and 8 million registered JazzCash users.
Network
Jazz has over 12500 active cell sites in the country, with over 25,000 kilometers of Fiber Optic cable laid. Huawei, Nokia-Siemens, and ZTE are the primary vendors for networking equipment at Jazz, including Radio Base Stations, Microwave equipment and network switches. Jazz has invested over 9 billion US Dollars in Pakistan till date. In 2014, Jazz participated in the 2014 NGMS auction held by PTA, which allowed them to bid for a 3G license, and a 10MHz block in the 2100MHz band was allocated to Jazz. In March 2017, Jazz inaugurated their new state-of-the-art Network Operations Center, it uses IBM and Dell EMC to manage day-to-day network operations and provides the company with 24x7 network surveillance. Jazz won Ookla’s Pakistan's Speedtest Awards Winner for mobile network speed during Q1-Q2 2019.
Radio Frequency Summary
Mobilink's participation in the 2014 NGMS Auction held by PTA allowed them to bid for the 3G license, which included a 10 MHz block in the 2100 MHz band. In July 2014, they announced that they would have the country's largest network with over 10,000 3G and 9,000 4G ready cell sites. Mobilink did not bid for any LTE spectrum in the 2014 NGMS auction. Post-merger with Warid, Jazz was able to use Warid's technology-neutral license allowing them to become an LTE network using a 5 MHz block in the 1800 MHz band. Spectrum refarming is also planned to allow more spectrum to be allocated to LTE, thus allowing Jazz to stay in competition with Zong. In May 2017, Jazz won the 2017 NGMS auction held by PTA. This includes a 10 MHz block in the 1800 MHz frequency to be used for Jazz LTE, whereas the current 5 MHz block is Warid's spectrum that is unlikely to have its license renewed in the future. Jazz was officially awarded its 4G spectrum on 30 June 2017 by PTA. The newly awarded spectrum and 5 MHz of Jazz's existing spectrum in the 1800 MHz band will be made active nationwide by the end of 2017, Jazz is currently in the process of upgrading their LTE network in many cities across the country, whilst also removing old Warid equipment. The network has already been upgraded in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Multan, Faisalabad, Sialkot, Chiniot, Quetta and Mianwali.
Jazz has refarmed a 5 MHz block from its 900 MHz spectrum for carrier aggregation with their existing 1800 MHz LTE spectrum. The new LTE-A network will be rolled out in Islamabad to cater for growing demand. This makes them the second carrier after Telenor Pakistan to officially launch LTE-A in the country.
Jazz has tested VoLTE over its network with its partners Huawei and Nokia, announced in a press statement. It is the first operator in Pakistan to prepare for the launch of VoLTE in the country.
5G Trials
In January, Jazz had reported that they had successfully carried out 5G trials with reaching speeds of 1.5Gbps. These trials were carried out on the 2.6GHz spectrum.
Subsidiaries
JazzCash
Jazz had partnered with Mobilink Microfinance Banking to make an entry into the branchless banking market, initially launched under the MobiCash brand name, it was later changed to JazzCash. It is a direct competitor to Telenor's Easypaisa. It allows users to pay bills, send and receive money and purchase top-ups for prepaid mobile numbers.
Jazz Business
Jazz Business is the business services division at Jazz.
