The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority blocked 27,986 websites between November 2019 and October 2020, bringing the total count since 2016 to 418,139 websites.
The telecom regulator shared this data in its annual report Tuesday. The websites were targeted for their views on Islam, Pakistan and for sharing pornographic content.
According to the report, all but 2% of households in the country own a mobile phone. Mobile services have achieved 81.1% penetration, with 172.3 million subscriptions.
The regulator said the past year witnessed an unprecedented growth in internet connectivity. Data usage increased a staggering 77% as people spent much of the year in lockdowns due to the coronavirus pandemic. This growth came mainly from new 4G subscriptions, which grew 60%. Broadband penetration increased 17%.
The new 4G usage drove a 62.7% expansion in the legal import of mobile devices. Twenty-nine local mobile phone assembly plants were set up during the year, which produced 18.36 million devices locally.
This growth proved invaluable to the national exchequer, which saw a 129% increase in contributions from the telecom sector in license and spectrum renewal fees, GST and WHT.