State of Telecom Industry in Pakistan

From a special report at Economist.

A new breed of observers is now joining the ever-present futurists and gadget geeks in studying the consequences of this technology. Sociologists in particular are trying to figure out how mobile communications are changing interactions between people. Nomadism, most believe, tends to bring people who are already close, such as family members, even closer. But it may do so at the expense of their attentiveness towards strangers encountered physically (rather than virtually) in daily life. That has implications for society at large.

GigaOm writer Stacey Higginbotham wrote a post Downside of always on society in response to the above report. Here’s a quote:

People like me, who leave at a certain time on most days and who don’t check their email/blogs/Facebook accounts except for once or twice on the weekends seem to be in short supply. And while people often talk the talk about family time being important, I’m amazed at the pitches I get for breaking news sent to me at 9 or 10 at night for news that will go out in a few hours or early the next morning.

I am concerned about this trend as well. Blackberry is nice device but it has the potential to take over your life. Seriouisly, sometimes an email just before bedtime can disturb a peaceful sleep. Take a look at the findings below. I for one don’t want colleagues or friends to expect responses at all hours!

Guest Post By Umar Farooq

This post is referring to the service you use on your mobile device, which is powered by your location at the moment in time. It could have GPS working behind it or could be the network operators Base Stations ( Antenna Towers ) where your location is being calculated.

In the recent past, operators have a hard time deciding whether to offer Location Based Services or not. Arguments in favor of the debate include,

1) Large Subscriber bases
2) Increasing mobile penetration
3) Availability of more advertisement real estate

and against the debate,

1) Substantial infrastructure cost
2) Market readiness
3) Driving safety

There are more arguments on both sides but these could be taken as primary ones at the moment. Looking a the arguments in favor, the only point which will effect the service for the end-user is the where it will enable operators to use it as an advertisement real-estate. Subscribers will be bothered every-time they pass by a pizza outlet, which has placed its advertisement with the respective operator. An SMS on your handset every time you pass near a boutique, can become quite irritating.

Arguments against the service keep in view that market may have become quite large but it is not ready to take on complex services at this moment. It will be sometime before market matures itself to the point of absorbing this service.And then the disturbance it will cause while you are driving, could be significant enough to mark an increase in road accidents.

While keeping all of this in view, it would be worthy to find out what the readers of this blog feel about this service, if introduced into the market.

Please feel free to post your comments about the possible pros and cons of this service.

Umar Farooq is currently working as Director at a telecommunication services and consulting company. He has worked with Ericsson in the past, with its Systems Integration unit. Umar is a graduate of Ghulam Ishaq Khan Insitute.