The first task that Prof. Dr. Atta ur Rahman undertook after taking oath as the Minister for Science & Technology in March 2000 was the reduction in IPLC prices of PTCL. After having a series of meetings with ISPAK and PTCL, Dr. Atta ur Rahman announced upto 53% reduction in the IPLC prices reducing them from $$ 32,250 plus Rs. 219,000 per month to $ 20,000 plus Rs. 55,000 per month.
The sub rate factor to work out the cost of lower multiples of 2 Mbps previously set at 11.93 was changed to 16. This provided substantial relief to small and medium size service providers operating in low bandwidth ranges of 64, 128, 256 kbps, etc. The DXX (digital cross connect charges) which were previously at Rs. 219,000.00 per month would were changed to a flat rate of Rs. 55,000.00 per month for data rates of 192 kbps.
