State of Telecom Industry in Pakistan

In this post I’ll look at the options for those who are visiting Pakistan and need temporary mobile phone service there. It addresses questions such as: Which cell phones work in Pakistan, what is a SIM, how to choose a service provider and how to pay for your calls.

Different parts of the world use different phone technologies (GSM, CDMA … see this post).  Therefore you need to have the right handset with the right settings for a given country. Most providers in US use CDMA but Cingular and T-Mobil use GSM. Europe, Africa and most of Asia, including Pakistan is on GSM. However GSM service providers in different countries may operate at different frequencies. GSM phones use a small chip or card called SIM, which stands for ‘Subscriber Identification Module’. SIM holds subscriber’s information and phone settings and it can be easily switched from phone to phone - thus making your phone an attractive target for snatching. In some countries (in US for example)  mobile phones are “locked” by the phone company to work only with specific SIM cards. For more about GSM and SIM cards see this post and the last section of the post.

You will need a SIM-unlocked GSM 900 compatible phone in Pakistan. You can take your own (you’ll need a 220V charger), rent one or buy a new or buy a used one from Pakistan. See this site for more on unlocking .

Phone Rental Service for Pakistan: Rental works best when for some reason you do not want to get into the hassle of choosing a set and provider and want prompt and preplanned service. Usuall the package includes a phone and a bucket of minutes with instructions on how to get more minutes.  Two of the companies which provide such serivces for Pakistan include Cellular Abroad  and Telestial. 

There are many factors which play into your choice of a provider: cost, signal and service features. Visit the page for service providers on this blog for a brief overview and browse their web sites for more information. If you are going to stay in the major urban cities then any provider should work fine. If you are looking for data or Ineternet service or for service in rural or remote areas you’ll need to do more research.

For those who have a working phone (perhaps a borrowed one!) and want their own number and service the best option is to go to the service center of one of the providers (see this page for providers) and fill out the paper work, pay the fee  and get a package of SIM card with a phone number. You will need to provide copy of your national identity card and a landline number.  My assumption here is that you want a prepaid service. If a service center is not nearby, many retail and convenience stores also carry and sell SIMs (for example see a list of where to buy from Telenor) - they will forward your paperwork to the service providers. In either case, you can start using the service fairly quickly.  Phone cards are available almost everywhere to recharge your account. Incoming calls and text messages are free. 

If you are travelling to areas outside cellular coverage you need a satellite phone. Read more »

Report from The Nation.  A latest study conducted by Nokia pointed out that the people in Pakistan prefer style more than the need of being connected. The study says that the new devices combined with a attractive fold design with quick cover keys is bringing out substance to style, which is more acceptable in Pakistan as compared to other markets in the region of Asia and Asia Pacific. The study said that for innovation-conscious users ‘we need to offer intelligent and entertaining multimedia functionality in an easy to use, ultra slim package’.

Talking to The Nation regarding the study and cell phone users preference for Nokia in Pakistan, Tomi Paatsila, Vice President of Mobile Phones Sales and Market Operations for Nokia in the Middle East and Africa said that the users in Pakistan had surpassed others in the demand for innovation in technology.

He said that the cell phone users in Pakistan were involved more in style, which was beyond their expectations. He said the users in Pakistan needed style and design more than other features.

He said that Nokia was considering of doubling its investment in Pakistan looking at the response. He said that Nokia has conducted a comprehensive and detailed study of mobile phone users and Pakistani users have surpassed their forecast in the market which will be over 3 billion subscribers by 2008.

Tomi said that youngsters demanded innovation in multimedia computer that brings the complete experience to a sleeker body. He said that Nokia has created a very eye-catching device using premium materials to enclose world-class features and experiences.

Read more »

Mobile Number Portability (MNP) has finally started in Pakistan during this week of March 2007. For background and history see my earlier posts on this topic.  Now the interesting battle to win and retain customers has started. In part 1 of the guide I’ll review how service providers and PTA have played their role in educating consumers and helping them through the transition. First a basic review of the process of MNP. After that a review of how service providers have conveyed MNP information on their web sites.

 1. Perform some basic checks for your number - such as: proof of ownership, no conflict due to existing agreement, number has been in service for at least 60 days etc.
2. Fill out a form and present it to the provider to which you wish to port.
3. Pay the porting fee (upto a few hundred rupees)
4. A Number Portability Request (NPR) is launched by your new provider (called Recipient Network) and you are given a SIM and a tentative time (at least 4 days - but could be up to 21 days) to when you can start to use new mobile provider network on this SIM.

I was hoping that PTA will provide a clear link to MNP guide on the MNP section of their web site but as of this writing I have not seen that (see my comments below for updates and see the PTA subscriber MNP Guideline). I am sure that very soon their will be some info posted there. But PTA really needs usability experts to imporve their site … despite all their hard work on getting MNP rolled out they did not update their site on time. In general it is not easy to get useful information from PTA site - see the cellular tariffs page for instance.

Mobilink provides a page on its site to help consumers move to its service!  As they put it: It is now very easy to become a part of Pakistan’s favourite cellular family. It is indeed ironic because as many readers of this blog have been quick to point, Mobilink stands to lose the most with MNP.

On Ufone’s site I was unable to find ANY information about MNP. What? I leave the comments to the readers.

Telenor presented a very well written guide and also provided a list of frequently asked questions (FAQ). Telenor has set the bar in terms of quality of information, clean design and a fast web site. Good job Telenor!

Warid’s site has also decent MNP FAQs, under customer service menu.  They could have made it more prominent. Overall Warid’s site has plenty of room for improvement.

This is the start of a new chapter in Pakistan’s telecommunication industry. I bet the call centers of mobile companies and the advertising agencies will be kept very busy in the next few weeks if not months. It will be interesting to see the competitive dynamics and the change in attention to customer service. I hope it will be worth all the investment.

This picture was posted at Flickr by a Japinder Singh at Wahga, in India. I was laughing hard after reading the comments to this picture:

that is funny…apney signal te aundey ni te gawandiyan de catch kardey ne….

Translation: Can’t even get our own signals and you are catching the neighbor’s signals.

I admit right now that in translating I have not done justice to the original Punjabi comment!

Japinder explains : I wasnt getting any signal there so was searching in manual mode.. and this is what i got.

For those who are not aware - Wahga is the border town between India and Pakistan, on the East side near Lahore.

This guest post was originally published by Osama Hashmi in his Green & White blog, and it is being cross-posted here.

Companies in Pakistan are beginning to recognize the strategic importance of curbing customer churn. As a result, some of the leading companies are implementing interesting and new ways of getting Customer Feedback to get some data on customer experiences.While this discussion should generally be a market research conducted over hundreds of companies, lets analyze three approaches.

Disclaimer: This may not be the apples to apples comparison you expect, because I am not counting traditional approaches such as help lines, ticketing systems, etc. What I am analyzing are “innovative” new ways of getting customer insight that the three firms are using.

UFone’s Approach to Customer Feedback

You walk into their store to pay the bill or get something done — that transaction is entered into their POS / CRM / Billing / ERP system.

One day later Ufone sends you an SMS hoping your experience was well, and asking a simple question: “Was your experience satisfactory? Send reply ‘yes’ or ‘no’ “.

Simple, and to the point.

Ufone Analysis
UFone’s approach is good in that it is a dead-simple feedback form — a Yes / No vote is easy enough that people might reply, and is also enough to form a very simplistic model of using that feedback to improve operations.

The costs of this approach, however, is that Ufone will not know why people
are not satisfied, and for this they will have to work closely with the
Line or Business Center managers as well as sort through reports of
customer service staff. Even then, they will skewed data — in today’s
customer experience world, skewed data can be hazardous to a company’s
health.

The other major issue with UFone’s approach is that it is an
interruption based approach. If I get an SMS at an odd time, I wouldn’t
care if the SMS says “thank you for visiting our store”, it interrupted
me and hence has a chance to put me off.

Especially because UFone keeps sending an SMS every day until you give
up and reply! (It does that to me anyway — maybe they wanted me to
write about them).

Read more »

Tomi Ahonen wrote an interesting post at Communities-Dominate blog, arguing that mobile is the 7th  mass media and at that, a much superior media to Internet. Of course it is the kind of bold statement which brings out a variety of reaction: some will agree to it and others will say Ahonen is stretching it too much. I will present some key points post - you should read the full story and comments here and share your thoughts.

Here are the reasons put forth by Ahonen to prove his point:

 The observations have been made from the point-of-view of a US/European society but apply to a large extent to the emerging economies as well. In case of developing countries mobile is not competing with Internet - it IS the only way of communication for many who may not have even seen the Internet. However some of the factors described above can also work against the idea of putting too much functionality in the mobile such as when your phone gets lost or stolen. However I completely agree that the massive scale and reach of mobile phones is way ahead of any other media.Last point which I want to express is that not all of the media described here have to necessarily compete … the digital convergence can bring them together in a way which we do not experience yet. No matter how much I love my phone, it is not the only gadget I want to interact with!

Some excerpts:

So yes the mobile, as the 7th Mass Media is the youngest, least understood, most dangerous new mass media - one which will soon supercede the internet. Not because consuming a web page is better on a phone (that would be stupid to even try) but rather has five benefits the internet cannot hope to match. And in addition to those five, the mobile can also replicate all that the internet can do, while not necessarily replicating all of those media experiences quite as well.

This is the newest mass media, and will soon be the most powerful mass media on the planet. It has enormous implications to the current giant, TV. And to its revenue engine - advertising. It has a huge implication to the internet, which will soon be overtaken in importance by mobile. Yes, you heard it here first. Mobile to the internet is like TV is to radio. Be sure you capture the real opportunity of our lifetimes.

This post is first in a series in which IPTV services in Pakistan will be discussed.  First an introduction to IPTV: in simple terms IPTV is television content that, instead of being delivered through traditional formats and cabling, is received by the viewer through the technologies (IP) used for computer networks. IPTV provides multimedia services via a broadband connection with the help of a set-top box (STB) which resembles a traditional cable box. A single connection (fiber optic, copper or cable) coming to your premise can serve phone, TV and Internet service - terms such as FTTH or FTTP are used when fiber optic cable is being used for higher bandwidth transmission.

Why IPTV? IPTV is an imporant piece of the Triple Play puzzle. Many telecom companies are using it to create a sticky bundle for customers, the idea is that if a customer gets all services from a provider he or she can be offered a better deal and therefore is less likely to switch providers. I, for one, use bundles at home and find it convenient to have one bill and one phone number for customer service.

Triple play is also great for offering enhanced and converged services (not all are feasible, though) such as :

• TV and video services such as video-on-demand (VoD), subscription, live TV channel lineup packaging and scheduling, and network-based digital video recorder capabilities
• Additional “blended” communications applications such as get an alert of phone call on your TV, text chat, live traffic information (even using your cell phone as a remote - seriously!)
• Personal media applications such as uploading of photographs and video clips and sharing of music and video content across multiple in-home devices

What is the situation of IPTV in Pakistan’s market today? It is all about broadband availability and affordability and till now Pakistan has miserably lagged behind on this. I am hopeful that things will change for better in the next 2-4 years. The policy and regulatory framework is set by PTA. Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) monitors and regulates the electronic media and it issues IPTV licneces as well.  I know about the following companies which can/will offer IPTV: PTCL, Wateen and Nayatel. There is little information available about PTCL plans (see some discussion here) but it is likely that they will offer IPTV over DSL using technologies from various foreign vendors (see below); for Wateen I’ve previously written here. Recently Brain has also advertised limited launch of IPTV service.

According to some resources PTCL may launch IPTV service on 23rd March 2007 to pilot users -with a broader launch to 20,000 subscribers in the first half of this year. In terms of its strategy IPTV must be a top priority for PTCL. It all comes to execution and creating a value package. PTCL launch is supported by Chinese telecom equipment giant Huawei and Irdeto, the Netherlands-based content security company. Huawei will provide the servers and set-top boxes (see Hua wei’s IPTV architecture below) and Irdeto will provide content security solution.

The Irdeto IPTV security solution integrated into the Huawei IPTV system provides for a full video product and service offering, including broadcast TV, video on demand, PVR and Time Shift TV. Within the Irdeto IPTV security framework, content is securely stored and distributed across any broadband IP network and the corresponding content rights can be managed on an individual subscriber and/or device basis.

Read more »

Move over iPhone … Google phone is coming - at least that’s what the rumours imply.  Apple’s iPhone created the sort of buzz which telecommunication industry had not experienced in a long time. Google’s phone is creating a bigger one by keeping its plans secret. Many blogs and news sites are talking about it with a few citing inside resources. Speculation about Google products has been wrong before. Google was widely reported to be building its own line of personal computers a little over a year ago. Turned out to be a set of free software programs designed to make any existing Windows PCs easier to use.

Widely report news says that Google Inc. is developing its own mobile phone, according to industry insiders and analysts, while a Google official in Spain last week acknowledged the company is “investigating” such a project. Newspaper and blog reports in recent months have Google shopping its phone design to potential mobile-phone manufacturing partners in Asia.

“Mobile is an important area for Google,” Google spokeswoman Erin Fors said on Friday. “We remain focused on creating applications and establishing and growing partnerships with industry leaders to develop innovative services for users worldwide. However, we have nothing further to announce.”

WSJ also jumped in and reported that Google is developing new software tailored to run on mobile phones. “The software goes well beyond the applications for phones Google already offers for accessing services such as search and maps, the people say. It could more closely resemble a software platform for such devices, along with integrated applications for accessing Google’s Internet services.”

There are plenty of other players who are introducing their versions of slick phones. Here’s some examples as reported by WSJ. Meanwhile, competitors already are responding. Samsung and LG both have announced phones in recent weeks with designs that look similar to the iPhone. And of course Microsoft is supposed to come up with Zune phone. And last but not least here’s a Meizu M8 clone as reported on this forum.

More about Google Phone from Reuters:

Gadget enthusiasts who only two months ago were obsessed with the potential revolutionary impact on the phone industry of Apple Inc.’s iPhone device — due out in June and at prices starting at $500 — have shifted their attention to whether Google is developing an even lower-cost phone.

“We obviously need another mythical mobile to drool over and speculate about — and the natural candidate is, of course, the so-called Google phone,” geek hardware site Engadget wrote earlier this month .

But Richard Windsor, a phone analyst with brokerage Nomura in London, told clients late last week that unspecified Google representatives at a major European conference in Germany had confirmed the company is working on its own phone device.

“Google has come out of the closet at the CeBIT trade fair admitting that it is working on a mobile phone of its own,” Windsor said in a note entitled “Google Phone: From myth to reality.”

“This is not going to be a high-end device but a mass market device aimed at bringing Google to users who don’t have a PC,” he said.

Over the past year, Google has branched out beyond computers to bring Web search, e-mail, mapping and other Web services to millions of new and existing phone browsers worldwide. Rivals Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. also are racing to run Web services on mobile phones.

Simeon Simeonov, a Boston-based venture capitalist with Polaris Venture Partners, said in a March 4 blog post (which I read but disappeared from his site today)  that an “inside source close to the company” had informed him that Google was developing a “Blackberry-like, slick device.”

The device Simeonov describes could handle voice over Internet phone-calling. He said it is being developed within a 100-person mobile phone group at Google that includes Andy Rubin, the creator of Sidekick, a popular phone/Internet device that he developed at a prior company he founded, Danger Inc.

Lending further clues, Isabel Aguilera, head of Google’s Iberian operations, was quoted last week in Spanish news site Noticias.com as acknowledging the existence of a part-time project by some Google engineers to develop a mobile phone.

In January, Engadget circulated a photo purporting to be a prototype Internet phone with a wide, color screen designed by Google and built by Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. . This unconfirmed report replaced an earlier theory published by The Observer in December that Google was working with Taiwan’s High Tech Computer Corp. (HTC) on a mobile phone.

A source at a rival Internet company who has talked to the same mobile phone manufacturers said on Friday that “Google is going to build their own phone, whether it is with HTC or Samsung or some other original device manufacturer.”

Windsor, the London-based Nomura analyst who tracks mobile phone handset makers like Nokia of Finland, argues that a Google Phone “will meet with limited success and lose money” because it lacks the necessary phone industry relationships to reach the massive scale needed to compete.

Some headlines from the media about Google Phone:
* Giga OM - Forget iPhone, Think Google Phone
* Guardian Unlimited - Nothing goes down better than a Google rumour

Recently PTCL has come under increasing pressure from its competitors. As a result its long distance revenue - outgoing international calls in particular - has been in decline. Last year PTCL had to reduce its long distance rates - within Pakistan nationwide and also for international destinations (Ufone did the same). I wrote about it here.

But starting in 2007 PTCL has slashed the rates again to Rs. 2/minute for nationwide and international calls to select countries including USA, UK, Canada etc. Another positive thing is that the rate structure has also been simplified. Full details are available here. Interestingly calls to mobile phones are Rs. 2.50/minute - it means it costs more to call someone in your own town than calling the other continent. PTCL has decided to compete on volume than price. This goes to show that with changing technologies and fierce competition brought by deregulation,  price barriers have been removed.

I am sure the lower rates and simple rate structure brings relief to consumers and makes their lives easier. Since the rate cuts are relatively recent there are many who have not taken advantage of these changes so I wanted to highlight it here. Please share your experience of calling international from Pakistan.

This is the 100th post on this blog. I wanted to take a moment and acknowledge all those who have supported the blog -Thanks to all the readers and for those who have provided feedback, comments and corrections. Special thanks to Adil Najam,  the founder of Pakistaniat.com, for his encouragement and feedback. Contributors at WiredPakistan have also provided valuable input through the forums.

The readership has grown steadily since the blog started in July of 2006. I got to know many interesting people and learned about many innovative technologies and companies while researching for the blog. Please keep the comments and e-mails coming as that tells me what’s relevant and which topics needs additional work. As I live abroad, I would appreciate the experiences and notes from within Pakistan. Occasionally I digress from telecom and Pakistan specific topics to discuss what else is going on around the world and how technology is shaping our lives. I hope that is not too much of a distraction.

I have made some changes (improvements I think) to the blog: I have included a separate page for service providers. With the growing number of relevant blogs and sites I also plan to refresh the “Resources” page.

Some of my posts have also been published on other blog sites such as Pakistaniat.com,  Green and White and Rising Pakistan.  I also welcome and encourage contributors to this blog - I believe that views and opinions from multiple sources enrich conversations. Please contact via e-mail or comments if you are interested.

Till recently voice and data used to be transported on separate networks. With advances in network technologies this separation is no longer there. Next Generation Networking (NGN) is a term which refers to the technology where a single network is capable of transporting all information and services (voice, data, video) by encapsulating these into packets. NGNs are commonly built around the Internet Protocol, and therefore the term “all-IP” is also sometimes used to describe the transformation towards NGN (adapted from Wikipedia NGN page). The IP Multimedia Subsystem, IMS, is a related concept to NGN. Technologies such as WiFi and WiMAX  belong to the NGN area.

The NGN illustration below is from Cisco Systems (get full paper in pdf or html).

ITU Definition of NGN - A NGN is a packet-based network able to provide telecommunication services and able to make use of multiple broadband, QoS-enabled transport technologies and in which service-related functions are independent from underlying transport-related technologies. It enables unfettered access for users to networks and to competing service providers and/or services of their choice. It supports generalized mobility which will allow consistent and ubiquitous provision of services to users. 

The interesting thing is that countries like Pakistan were able to adopt (or should I say import?) NGN without too much difficulty as they did not have a hefty investment in old technology infrastructure. The US companies, for example took considerable time to make the change. Only in 2001 the move beyond 2G was made which allowed the US companies to go from circuit switching to packet switching.

As ITU points out, the concept behind NGN is a shift away from an era of separate networks (such as narrowband fixed, broadband fixed, cellular mobile, cable TV), bearing different services (voice, video, text, data) to multiple devices, e.g. fixed handset, mobile handset, PC. NGN moves towards a unitary IP-based network in which the common features of the user environment (for example user preferences, contacts, databases, files and so on) are accessible as the user moves around, say between home, car and office, or between desk and meeting room. From a regulation point of view Next generation networks (NGNs) are likely to require next-generation regulation as the problems of scarcity are replaced by dilemmas of abundance and complexity.

Per ITU the NGN functional architecture should incorporate the following principles.

Alcatel, Nortel, Huawei, Siemens and Cisco are a few of the major companies who dominate NGN. Many of them are suppliers for service providers in Pakistan. As a case study, lets take a look at Wateen’s network which is poised for triple play in Pakistan.  Wateen’s website provides the following information about their NGN and other networks.

Wateen’s Next Generation Network (NGN) Core

• IMS enabled converged IP/MPLS core multi-access network based on layered architecture designed to provide quad-play services (voice, data, multimedia and limited mobility) and much more
• Robust class 4 and class 5 soft switches with a host of applications and value-added services to provide depth and breadth to our product offering

Read more »

What is digital identity and why do we need to protect it, in Pakistan of all the places? With globalization and outsourcing on the rise privacy and Identity theft is fast becoming a global problem. Here are a few reasons for concern regarding privacy and data protection in Pakistan: rise in banking and consumer credit industry,  surging number of telecom subscribers, outsourced data processing and grwoth of E-commerce transactions. I’ll provide some background, discuss the existing rules and provide recommendations for business organizations.

The question is: do we have adequate identity and privacy protection in Pakistan? Are banks and telecom companies doing enough to keep your personal information safe?  As one example, I was sent phone bills of someone else via e-mail and even after reporting the issue there was no followup. Probably similar incidents have happened with others in Pakistan as well, though statistics are not readily available.

My prediction is that gradually Asian societies (Pakistan, China, India etc) will become more sensitive to data protection and privacy issues. Now is a good time to demand good security practices to safeguard our data.

As a related item I’ll mention theITU Internet Report entitled “digital.life” (in pdf), which was prepared for ITU TELECOM World 2006 . The report examines how innovation in digital technology is radically changing individual and societal lifestyles.

Chapter four, identity.digital, explores the changing nature of the digital individual and the need for greater emphasis on the creation and management of digital identity. Individuals today spend more and more time using digital means to communicate and transact, be that sending and receiving e-mail, talking on a mobile phone, participating in a social networking site, buying music, booking vacations over the internet, or playing an online game. The complexity of the interaction between technology, personal consumption and the construction of identity in the virtual space is a growing area of research. Users of digital technologies have a wide scope for constructing their virtual identity.

What are the laws for data and privacy protection in Pakistan? I found a final draft of the Electronic Data Protection Act 2005 at Pakistan Software Export Board [PSEB] website. It is a relatively short and simple document which provides very basic rules over data collection, processing and handling. The Act tries to solve two problems: a) provide guidelines for outsourced data processing and b) data collection regulation in Pakistan. To give you a flavour of this Act here are 2 definitions from it:

“Sensitive Data” means data revealing racial or ethnic origin, religious, philosophical or other beliefs, political opinions, membership in political parties, trade unions, organizations and associations with a religious, philosophical, political or trade-union, or provide information as to the health or sexual life of an individual and financial, or proprietary confidential corporate data.

Electronic data security. Electronic data that is subject to data processing shall be kept under custody, controlled or processed in such a way as to minimize the risks of its destruction or loss, even accidental, unauthorized access, unlawful processing or processing for purposes other than those for which the electronic data were collected, by means of appropriate precautionary security measures.

I would like to hear more from those who are involved in data processing in Pakistan and get some stats about security breaches and their resolution. A few years ago there was some uproar in the US about a data processing company in Pakistan but that issue was settled. Perhaps that incident also contributed to the implementation of Electronic Data Protection Act 2005.

What is the situation in the developed (or G7) world? European Union has stricter standards than US, where laws vary from state to state. The privacy legislation in California is worth mentioning here. State of California is considered by many to be the most strict regarding privacy and identity issues. California has setup a privacy office for this purpose and you can find the legislature details here .

Based on California’s laws Forrester Research recommends the following practices for Business organizations - these recommendations can be applied to any organization:

Pick a framework. The establishment of reasonable security is best built on a foundation that is recognized and accepted. ISO17799 is currently the leading and most accepted framework to build an information security program around. The framework provides a standard architecture to document controls and make sure that everything is covered.

Identify and classify information. The focus of reasonable security is around personal California resident data. Security is first established by classifying this data — define it, assign information owners, establish controls —and identifying where in the organization this information resides. Personal data may be classified into subcategories such as employee data and customer/client data.

Determine business partners that touch your data. Identify which business partner relationships touch and store personal data; this is a critical element that is directly addressed in the legislation. Your organization’s liability does not stop with organizational boundaries — you are required to see adequate security is established in third-party relationships.

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