State of Telecom Industry in Pakistan

Recently a lot of stories published here have been about customer service issues. Somehow the service issues get more coverage in the media including blogs. To be fair, there are plenty of helpful employees in telecom companies who go out of their way to resolve issues. Some of them even contribute to online forums and discussions as well. However it is safe to say that more can be done to improve customer satisfaction in the telecom industry of Pakistan.

I spotted this announcement at the web site of a major telco. It is full of positive statements about customer care but given the track record, how credible is it for public and the employees of this company? I have removed the name of the telecom company from the picture below. Can you guess which company is this? I will announce the name in 2 days.

Special Post By Tariq Mustafa

The second commercial Wimax network went live in Pakistan (Karachi) recently. For the South Asain nation of 160 million (half of which are young adults), these cutting edge WiMAX networks are a cause for celebration. Mobilink (one of the most successful ventures of the international telecoms giant Orascom Telecom) which has the highest subscriber base of over 30 million subscribers (out of the total 80 million users nationwide) has launched its Wimax brand called Mobilink Infinity.

The network is essentially 802.16e based mobile Wimax and has been launched in Karachi, the commercial capital of Pakistan and also world’s second most populous city in the world with 16 million citizens. The CPE costs Rs 6,000 ($77) one-time and monthly subscriptions are available in 256kbps, 512 kbps and 1 mb categories. The integrated VoIP based analog voice port allows local loop telephony to the user with preferential rates for the (dominating) Moblilink network.

Earlier Pakistan got the worlds largest nationwide Wimax Network from Wateen Telecom , a new telecoms business venture of the Abu Dhabi Group that also owns the popular cellular brand Warid in Pakistan (and now in some other countries – Congo and Georgia). Wateen’s Wimax (built on Motorola Wimax gear) has received mixed response and some believe that the less than perfect launch of the much hyped product has more to do with the company’s operations rather than the technology limitations. The problems have accumulated enough to give Wimax a bad name. New operators are expected to avoid the technology name (wimax) in their upcoming products in the local market due to this reason.

A few weeks ago, Worldcall (an overseas investment of Omantel of Oman in Pakistan) launched its CDMA EvDO services on top of its popular CDMA based Wireless Local Loop voice services. Marketed under the catchy marketing campaign using Footloose, the service uses Anydata’s USB modem as its EvDO CPE.

Some estimates puts Pakistan’s teledensity as the highest in the region.

Related Posts: Here, here and here.

A version of this post also appeared at DailyWireless.org

The 2008 P@SHA ICT Awards ceremony was held at Marriott hotel in Karachi on Oct 31. A number of ICT companies and individuals were awarded the prestigious P@SHA award. Some of the companies which received the award have been covered at TelecomPk earlier.

This was an excellent and upbeat ceremony which broguth together some of the brightest minds in Pakistan high tech industry. Some bloggers covered the ceremony live from the event site using Wateen’s WiMAX connectivity. Our congratulations to all of the award winners and the runner-ups. Here’s a short list of telecom related winners.

• See n Report – People Powered News – won the award in the ward in e-Inclusion & e-Community Applications category.
• Jaadu won the Communications Award. The Merit in this category went to FoneiTall developed by Five Rivers Technologies.
• The Converged Media Solutions application developed by PixSense won the Digital Media & Entertainment Award.
• Umar Saif received award for Chopaal, the group messaging product.

For more see this post from Jehan Ara, who writes the best picture stories about celebrations and get-togethers.

Furqan Qureshi, GM Strategy & Corporate Business of Wateen Telecom, who, when invited, actually wanted to know why we hadn’t asked them to sponsor the event. Within minutes he and Athar Jamal, GM Marketing had come back to me with a commitment for the Gold Sponsorship. And when I suggested to Furqan that we wanted to organize live blogging from the event, he arranged for a 2 MB wimax connection