About two weeks ago we asked our readers about their opinion on the “limited time offers” by telecom companies. You can view that post here. An overwhelming majority of 92% responded with dissatisfaction over how companies handle these offers. I think this presents a good opportunity for these companies to improve how these offers are marketed and communicated.
Every other day we hear about special offers from cellular operators introducing new packages and rates. Majority of these are limited time offers. It is very hard to find out if a packages announced are still effective or not. We have had instances earlier that the offers are taken back without proper and clear notification to the consumers and they have been hit with higher charges because of this.
Such actions are violations of the consumer rights. I suggest that the authority must enforce on operators to clearly announce end-time of all limited-time offers with the announcement of any such offer. We are here posting a poll on the same, cast your opinion and give your comments on this.
The recent offers from Mobilink; sim lagao, IDD call charges reduction, iTalk and iSMS were much appreciated because of their transparency not only in explaining the offer but giving details of all costs associated with it.
The latest from them is the Jazz Khazana, in which one gets a chance to win cash prizes by sending blank SMS to 5555 of Rs. 50,000 daily, Rs. 5,00,000 weekly and one may even get a chance to win the grand prize of Rs. 50,00,000. Their website gives details about the Mechanics, the Points Collection Criteria, the Eligibility Criteria & Rules, Bonus Points Criteria and Terms and Conditions all very clearly but hides the cost of sending the SMS in FAQs.
PTA has recently published a long overdue paper outlining the key performance indicators (KPIs) for fixed broadband services in Pakistan. The objective of defining these indicators, per PTA paper, is to create transparent, quantifiable and measurable standard service parameters for broadband which the service provider is entailed to provide and the user has a right to expect.
When compared with cellular phone growth, Broadband has been slow to take off in Pakistan. However the last two years show some progress in terms of growth (a little over 20K subscribers per month), more choices of services in more places and most importantly a significant drop in cost for broadband access (~Rs.1200 per month on average). Another welcome trend is to move towards unlimited broadband.
PTCL has taken the lead with its DSL and EVO offerings while WorldCall, Mobilink Infinity, Wateen / WiMAX, Qubee, NayaTel and Wi-Tribe have also offered their services.
According to PTA, “broadband subscriber base grew by 146% adding 245,727 subscribers during July 2008 – June 2009, while broadband connection charges for 1Mbps connection dropped below Rs. 1000. There were 413,809 Broadband subscribers in June 2009 as compared to 168,082 in June of 2008.”
At the current rate of broadband growth we can cross the half-million mark by December 2009. We need to get to 1 million much faster.
Daily Times recently wrote about broadband, excerpt below.
The Sustainable Development Policy Institute’s (SDPI) Study Group on Information Technology and Telecommunication in its 56th meeting discussed the problems that hinder broadband growth in Pakistan. Relevant stakeholders participated in the meeting. Wahaj ul Siraj of NayaTel and Zamir Bhatti of Wi-tribe reviewed the existing policy and infrastructure sharing issues.
The story has been the same for many years. The surge in network activity at Eid time is accompanied by service issues. And recently some companies have withdraw certain popular packages, SMS in particular. My thinking is that if a company can’t offer these packages during the peak times, then don’t bother offering it at all. Otherwise it sounds like switch and bait and hurts the brand reputation. Read more »
Universal Service Fund of Pakistan continues its initiatives to award substantial funds for rural connectivity in Pakistan. Recently USF awarded telecom contracts worth Rs. 1.25 Billion for providing Broadband Internet in the un-served urban areas of Hazara Telecom Region (HTR) with PTCL and Wateen Telecom and Optic Fiber connectivity to un-served tehsils of Central Balochistan with Wateen Telecom. Read more »
Obnoxious calls/missed calls or SMSs are sometimes very disturbing. In this post I will do a round-up of the Block Services being offered by our telecom operators.
The latest subscriber number update by PTA reveals very interesting results. The last figures of July showed a total subscriber base of cellular services reaching 95.5 million. The latest update takes this number up to 95.9 million showing the lowest growth rate of 0.13% this year. Much of this has to do with the SIM data corrections, as expected.
Telenor and Mobilink both showed increase in subscribers, almost neck-to-neck in numbers. The most interesting figures are of Ufone, which gained very little in July and lost much in two months. Warid and Zong also didn’t see much increase in July-September period.
I was expecting a drop in subscriber numbers after successful completion of the SIM Data Correction (668) Campaign which started in October. However depending on how PTA reported the numbers, some corrections may have started in August. This result shows that in coming months not only the growth rate will decline but the total number may also fall down further.
When you have a telecom market with a large number of packages available and fierce competition, how do you make a new package stand out? One approach is to cut through the clutter and go for simple. This is the approach used by Zong: Cheap, Simple, Done. Here’s a quote from their website about Zong 45 pacakge.
PTA is very seriously monitoring the SIM Data Correction process and aims to regularize it, curbing all the misinformation. In order to facilitate mobile users seeking correction in their SIM data, has removed the condition of CNIC copy being provided by the consumers.
All of a sudden bill payment is at the top of everyone’s mind. Whether its utility bills or phone bill, the race is on for convenience and service. Warid has started to offer its phone bill payment at 1 Link ATMs with a statement that “This service is free of cost and has no hidden charges.” Here’s more.
WARID provides endless convenience to pay your Post pay bills or TOP up your prepaid accounts via 1LINK ATMs throughout the country. Now, no need to wait in line, pay your bills through ATMS of following 1LINK Member banks in a convenient and effective manner. It is simple and easy to use service which is available 24 X 7.
All subscribers can now avail the facility to pay their bill through ATM machines, or can TopUp its prepaid number, which are available in denominations of Rs. 250, Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000.
So can we expect utility bill payment as well from Warid?
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