The Norwegian transnational mobile phone service has officially opened its commercial service in Gujrat on Tuesday. Since its launching two months ago, this was the eighth city in the country. Announcing this here, Helge Dietrichson, Communications Director said the mobile phone service was moving according to its schedule and now covered approximately 34.36 million people. So far Telenor covered Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Karachi, Hyderabad, Faisalabad and Gujranwala and under conditions of its license has to cover 70 percent of all tehsil headquarters by four years.

By new licenses, Pakistan will have six competing mobile operators in a population now nearing 150 million and a mobile phone penetration of five percent.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2005