State of Telecom Industry in Pakistan

I came across this tariff sheet from PTA. Honestly it took me 30 minutes to figure it out. And I used to work for a phone company. I have written about the need for a simple rate plan before. Let me try to make a case for it again.

The bulletin is the result of hard work by some one at PTA. Good work but I do not know if such a complicated (12 rows x 24 columns) view will be really useful for the average Pakistani consumer. The footer alone – which explains all the mysterious terms such as off-net and LNO – can cause headache. Lets take a look at Zong rates – just for example. They have 4 packages with billing pulse varying from 1-second to 60-seconds. For the 8 Aanay package, the off-net rate is different for the first minute and second minute. I could go on and point a few things like this. Do we need all this complexity?

Consider a fictitious example: 1000 minutes on-net @Rs1.50/minute and 1000 off-net @Rs.2/minute and 1000 sms @Rs.0.50 per sms. Total = Rs. 40000. In other words, packages with buckets of minutes could make things simple.

For many users this much usage should be equivalent to an “unlimited” talk and text plan. In many countries calls on the same network are free in the evenings and weekends.

I must say that Warid has done a good job on this. Telenor has drifted in the opposite direction with the “widest” matrix of them all.

Tariq Mustafa has written an excellent post about how to fix the Internet Telephony In Pakistan. Tariq argues that Internet-based services should be defined as new class of services with clear rules and regulations – something which PTA has been unable (or unwilling?) to do. After Tariq wrote this piece, the Indian telecom regulator announced that VOIP will be allowed – that puts the issue in further perspective and highlights the importance of fixing this mess in Pakistan.

For those who do not know, Tariq has been involved with Internet and technology in Pakistan since early 90s. There are very few experts who can rival the combination of his knowledge of telecom industry in Pakistan and his leading role in sharing information via online communities. Tariq notes that:

The main issue here is the ability of the LL operator to replace the traditional copper for its end user or the expensive 1900 Mhz WLL frequencies for its end user with the ‘Internet cloud’. It is technically possible but the use of Internet for voice problem had its own fair share of cloudiness. At the center of this debate is the use of the word ‘long distance’ – whether it is to be taken physically or network-wise.

When last LDI/LL licenses were issued, the LL license itself was a cheap affair – though the spectrum (both for 1900 Mhz and 3.5 Ghz) was auctioned at high prices. At that time, a number of Internet savvy people – Brain included – took the LL license only banking on new VoIP technologies to come to their rescue later.

A few VoIP technology companies (a cross between operators and technology vendors if you will) had been constantly chasing the smaller LL operators (as described above) evangelizing the use of VoIP in local loop operations where the ‘affinity to local numbers’ is the actual ‘good sold’ and the profit comes in from volumes of such ‘numbers’ beings sold worldwide at fixed monthly rates (but not actually always being used).

These VoIP technology companies met some success during the past couple of years with a number of LL operators signing up them either as partners or just technology vendors. At that time, cellular industry was priming and people, operators and the regulator somehow had little time to attend to this possibly controversial issue.

Now that the market is nearing a tele-density of over 50% and market consolidation has started, these by-issues will get more attention (and probably get more debated).

PTA’s clarification on use of VoIP (available from PTA’s website and discussed on some related online forums) is of little help as it leaves room for guessing by the readers.

My personal position here is that given the non-deterministic nature of public Internet (specially when the bandwidth is not directly coming from a T1 operator) as a transport mechanism for real time traffic, such ‘Internet-glued’ LL services should be allowed – they will always be placed at number 2 in terms of voice quality and deterministic performance. Such services could be declared a new class of service with clear requirement of informing end consumers about emergency services not working on them as well as possible degraded voice performance due to third party packet networks that happen to lie between the end networks. Given a considerable population of expatriate Pakistanis around the world, these services stand a fairly good chance of catching on in popularity and can earn some part of the much needed forex for country by the local companies offering such services worldwide.