State of Telecom Industry in Pakistan

Technology blog site Engadget is creating waves with stories of complete unlock of iPhone. It first reported iPhoneSIMFree’s success in unlocking the iPhone — a project that’s been ongoing since the late June launch of the smart phone — and confirmed that the hack works. Engadget said the unlock remains intact even after applying the most recent firmware update, and posted a short video demonstrating the iPhone connecting to and making a call over the T-Mobile network.

The post claims that iPhone software unlock is legit, and we have proof. “We can confirm with 100% certainty that iPhoneSIMfree.com’s software solution completely SIM unlocks the iPhone, is restore-resistant, and should make the iPhone fully functional for users outside of the U.S.” said Ryan Block on Engadget.

Too good to be true? Nope — the iPhone software unlock mentioned a couple days ago is legit. As what seems like teams of people worked on various avenues to unlock this thing, the iPhoneSIMfree.com group was silently plugging away behind the scenes. Our own Ryan Block got together with them and demoed their wares and reports back with some detailed findings.

There’s also some talk that certain sites will offer unlocking services for a fee. Too good to be true, just rumours or a limited opportunity? The situation will be clear in the next few days. Who knows, I might go for one of these iPhones.

This view of convergence caught my attention. This is from the recently released research work by Ofcom, the regulator in UK. Obviously the text in this diagram has references to UK providers and services, but nonetheless it is a good snapshot. Despite the late start and domestic problems, Pakistan got in the game at a good time and has caught up with others.

 The report (page 20 of part 1) mentions the 3 major areas where convergence changes the playing field:
• Content – offering an opportunity for content producers to create use mixed-media formats (e.g. TV/interactive/web) and new ways to distribute existing content;
• Networks – upgrades that widen the capabilities and capacity of historically separate and single-purpose distribution infrastructure; and
• Devices – the creation of equipment that offers functionality typically delivered on stand-alone devices.

There’s plenty more in the 187 page report, in case you are interested.

From New Scientist Special Report. The idea is summed nicely by this statement from the report: In the developing regions you have hostile conditions for a PC so phones have a lot of potential to become the computing platform for people.

Two proof-of-concept cases studies from India illustrate how. The first one is about converting banking paper forms to digital version using mobile phone. The second one is about educational video games that run on smartphones.

Is there a similar case study which you can share?

Micro-lending groups are typically run by women in rural areas who arrange small loans for each other or act as mediators between banks and the local community. They have proved to be a successful strategy in sparking business endeavours and combating poverty. But one problem is that these groups often keep poor accounts, which can make it difficult for banks or other lenders to invest in them with confidence.

“When banks are interested in lending to these people, if they’re lucky the groups will have a stack of paper records,” says Tapan Parikh, a computer scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle who works with micro-finance groups in India.

Typically, these records would include forms stating the agreed amount, duration of the loan and repayment receipts. Parikh learned that group members prefer the paper forms because many can’t read and so fill them out by memorising which numbers go in which boxes. As a result, he stuck with paper but turned to camera-phones to make the accounting process more secure and transparent.

He created a new version of the paper forms, which look like the old ones except that a barcode has been added next to each box or section where you need to fill in numbers. Instead of filling out these new forms, you take a picture of each barcode with a cellphone. Software on the phone recognises the barcode and a message appears on the screen, prompting you to enter the figures that would have gone in the section that corresponds to that barcode. There is also a spoken version of the message to make things clearer for those who can’t read. In this way, the borrower or lender scrolls through the whole form, taking snapshots of the barcodes and entering data via the phone’s keypad. The result is an electronic version of the form, which is initially stored on the phone and later uploaded to a central server when the phone is near a mast.

Learn English by phone

It isn’t just the photo and video features of smartphones that are useful to people in the developing world. The advanced graphics and high-speed chips they come with are being harnessed to build educational video games.John Canny’s group at the University of California, Berkeley, found that the language skills of some English teachers in Mysore, India, were lacking and that children were often kept away from school to help with chores. Yet 19 of 47 students had parents with cellphones.

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