I leave it up to you to comment on the achievements mentioned above. I think the previous posts and comments on rising price were clear enough that consumers are not satisfied with the recent direction of telecom sector in Pakistan.
Over the years I have presented different views and ideas on how to improve the very low number of broadband users in Pakistan (here and here). Here’s another view by Dr Amir Mateen (Cisco) from TeleCON 2008. His presentation looks at the problem in a different way and provides some brutal, honest analysis such as “Not digital divide, just the old divide carried over into the digital world”. His recommendation: Redefine success criteria for broadband in Pakistan.
Tee Emm attended the event and shared some great commentary on Dr. Mateeen’s presentation which is worth repeating here:
Some presentations were really good and thought provoking like the one given by Dr Amir Mateen of Cisco Systems Pakistan where he talked about how great the broadband vacuum is in Pakistan and how unprepared the local contents are and that in the absence of structured local contents, people will make up their own contents (read social networks) and in doing so, there is a real danger of a whole new generation getting carried away in the roman Urdu flood and how this threatens the Urdu script and the associated heritage.
I share the same concerns about how we are treating Urdu language in Internet and telecommunication age. This is something which needs to be discussed in more detail.
Good development. PTA has proposed a few actions for dealing with spam. This includes spams SMS, emails and unwanted calls. See the proposal here or get it from PTA website. I doubt that a fine of 300 Rs will discourage professional spammers. Legitimate companies should start working on their opt-in lists.
It is proposed that a do not call register (DNC) may be maintained by telecom operators. The DNC Register will be a database having the list of all telephone numbers of the subscribers who do not want to receive unsolicited calls. After the establishment of DNC register a subscriber who does not wish to receive Unsolicited calls, can register their telephone number with their telecom service provider to be included in the DNC.
Operator shall upload the number to the DNC within 45 days of receipt. The Telemarketer will have to verify their calling mobile numbers list with the DNC register before making a call. An amount of Rs 300/- per call/message should be prescribed to discourage telemarketers who make calls to numbers registered in Do Not Call list. The defaulter telemarketer will face legal action.The impact of imposing a higher charge for calls and messages which have a commercial purpose attached to them will to some extent ensure that only legitimate calls are made i.e calls to recipients who do not have any problem with attending commercial calls.
Awareness is the key to fighting the spam problem. There are a number of channels listed by PTA but surprisingly blogs and other new media is not mentioned.
The Authority puts forward a media campaign check list which shall be followed by the Authority in collaboration with operators to create spam awareness:
a) Public awareness activities to target users first and foremost, but also large corporations, small and medium-sized enterprises, direct marketers and online operators.
b) General awareness activities to be posted on the Web or other media such as television, newspapers and magazines. Brochures may be distributed in schools, made available on all operators’ websites, and also distributed as a leaflet in IT magazines. Educational cartoons about spam, unsolicited and obnoxious calls controlling and reporting and online security broadcast.
The telecom honeymoon in Pakistan which lasted about 5 years (2002-2007) allowed Pakistani consumers to leapfrog over older landline based infrastructure and get cheap and quick access to modern telecommunication technology. The investors, telecom businesses and Pakistani treasury - all made good money and it was a win-win situation. It seems that the golden period for Pakistan telecom is over. The spike in teledensity and corresponding load on the new infrastructure is causing a number of service issues. To add fuel to fire the telecom rates for calls to Pakistan and within Pakistan have started rising, causing a lot of concerns. Consider the following points (follow links for details) from the last few months:
Some people hold the view that given the tremendous progress made, complaining about telecom situation in Pakistan is not justified. Yes, there have been great advances made but if we do not fix the structural issues early on, we will lose much of that progress. Left unchecked we may even regress to a point where there’s plenty of competition but consumers end up without the services they deserve at a fair price. Broadband is an appropriate example … Pakistani public has been tormented with poor service and caps on the usage.
I believe that with the right regulatory measures, consumer protection laws and a code of ethics we can keep the telecom sector on the right track.
Continuing on the series of posts from TeleCON 2008, this one is on Profitability Challenges in a Low ARPU market. This presentation was made by Sajjad Hussain, Director Networks of Ericsson. It has some material which students and researchers will find particularly useful.
Naturally the presentation is tilted towards networks, transmission efficiencies, 3G and NGN. But most importantly it talks about the energy consumption and ways to address the energy demand by considering Green Sites which utilize alternative energy sources such as solar power and battery backup. There are a few slides on mobile commerce as well. Here is the full presentation in pdf.
Related Posts:
Here’s a view of how the mobile companies stack up against each other. In terms of the subscriber growth from Jan-Mar of 2008, Telenor is at the top.
In terms of total number of subscribers (see the chart on the right), Telenor (16.7 million) is closing the gap with Ufone (17.2 million). I am interested in hearing views about the drivers of this growth.
By end of Q2 it will be interesting to re-visit this and see whether Zong lived up to the buzz it created!
This is bad news for Pakistanis abroad: they will pay considerably more for calling Pakistan starting May 1. See the news item from Dawn. It seems to me that we are regressing in terms of policy making. Who benefits from this? PTA and long distance operators. What about consumers? Well, a lot of consumers and industry experts are upset and are taking various actions such as expressing their concerns through various offline and online channels (see this petition). One thing is certain: the grey telephony market will flourish because of this. Expect more noise around this in the coming days. I am not looking forward to my next bill for international calls!
Salman Ansari (former CEO of Paktel) has posted interesting predictions at various online forums. Here’s an excerpt:
Quality of calls of inbound calls specially from the US will become terrible (cellular terminations) as most inbound terminations will come in via low cost grey market – biggest culprits will be the biggest carriers (AT&T, Bell Canada, etc).
Wasim Baig summarized his views about this change at TGP:
Pros:
1. LDIs get a higher rate, higher margin
2. APC contribution increases
3. Origination increases
4. Balance of trade in PK’s favorCons:
1. Grey market increases
2. LDI may increase origination rates as well
3. Yet more regulation! PTA stays relevant to pricing ..
4. Market pricing takes a back seat
Here’s more from Dawn article.
“The PTA, in fact, has addressed the demand of local operators, who have been pleading for increase in such rates, as it would not affect the local consumers of the facility,” said the source. “But it would naturally increase the cost of calling to Pakistan from outside”.
Does it make business sense to introduce 3G in Pakistan at this time? PTA has been deliberating on this question for a while. Recently PTA asked major technology stakeholders (equipment makers, mobile companies) to share their view points on 3G licensing and roll-out. The presentations have been posted at the PTA website. Telenor CEO has talked to press about his views on 3G, covered here. Take a look at few points from a presentation by another one of the major mobile company. The argument presented is that conditions are not suitable for 3G in Pakistan and the data revenue potential does not justify investments needed for 3G. They recommend to either defer spectrum allotment or give partial spectrum at nominal cost. Can you guess which mobile operator is this?
3G Situation in Pakistan
Spectrum Cost
Option 1
Defer the allotment of spectrum for another 1-2 years (as per our recommendation May 2007)Option 2
Award 5Mhz of 3G spectrum to all MNOs at nominal cost (similar to WiMax spectrum fee )
Why?
Guest Post by Mr. Nadeem Irshad Kayani, Director Punjab Consumer Protection Council, Headquarters Office, 135-J Model Town, Lahore, Ph # 042-5857927, 5855471.
The consequences of growing integration globally include enhanced speed & velocity of transactions involving finance, technology, information and transportation of goods and services. The business is on the move globally and off shoring and outsourcing provides cheaper inputs resulting in cost effective products and services. As a consequence business remains competitive and consumers get more options to choose from a range of products and services. The services trade is growing immensely and increased connectivity has provided it with virtual space to move and grow.
The increasing competition due to availability of information make consumer confused but at the same time cost of product and services may decrease to the benefit of the consumer. The standards of products and services can go down and deceptive practices to earn profits may gain currency.
Globalization is not an equitable process and its effects vary depending on the social status and geographical location of the individual. Liberalization, privatization of economy and regulation of the markets are the buzz words these days but in fact regulation and de-regulation of business continues side by side. Need is being felt to introduce rights based regime to face the ill effects of globalization. The human rights of the citizens are a contested domain and they have become an integral part of national and global policies aimed at providing justice and equal opportunity for all. The academics argue that economic and process regulation should be replaced by social regulation including consumer protection.
Every working person wants high quality products and services in return for his hard earned money. The rights of consumers are an integral part of human rights agenda, specifically elaborated in the guidelines for consumer protection formulated by United Nations General Assembly in 1985. These guidelines provide a framework to safeguard the consumers against deception, fraud and exploitation.
Make a note of this number. Buried deep in the PTA site, 0800-55055 is the number you need to call for complaints about all things related to telecom in Pakistan. This toll-free service for consumers was started sometime last year. Another welcome step but awareness remains low. Why is this number not listed on the PTA home page?
Take a look at the complaint numbers which are included in the quarterly telecom report by PTA — which by itself is a very informative and professional piece of work. These complaint numbers are lower than expectation. Generally complaints represent a small percentage of the actual issues. The hesitation to complain can be because of lack of awareness about the complaint process, lack of time etc but mainly because its such a hassle to write or call when you don’t even know if its going to make any difference.
Another interesting item from the PTA report is the breakdown of complaints by mobile companies. It clearly shows that more than 50% of the complaints are with Mobilink and Telenor. This is consistent with the reader sentiments on TelecomPk.net and other discussion forums.
This was also covered in a recent Business Recorder article.
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has received 3,886 complaints against telecom services providers, including PTCL, Mobile, WLL and value added services in the last three months of the year 2007.
Osama Hashmi at Green & White on the relationship of startups and Telcos. Telcos are always looking for interesting value-added services to drive up their ARPU and will partner with anyone who can offer such mobile apps. Of course telcos are also known for their control obsession over content & partners.
This is part of a conversation that started in a Startup Insiders session - should a young fledgling firm with a good idea think about building products around the mobile telecom space?
If you have a nice brilliant consumer-focused idea today, you’ll also have a number of options available to implement it. You could realize your idea as a web-2.0 implementation, as a widget, as a facebook / open-social application, as a web-M solution (mobile-focus website), as a handset-only application, or as a specialized value-added service built and offered in close partnership with a telecom operator.
The question is - where and why would you want to work with a telco, when some of the other options (particularly facebook) can offer a much higher potential audience-base and much lower total development costs.
Adnan from PixSense had the best answer I’ve heard about this - and as a backdrop I’ll point to a recent interview by the Mobile Marketing Magazine of the CEO of PixSense, Paul Singh.
The answer, according to Adnan, lies not in what telecos in general are doing with service vendors, but in what they could do in terms of pricing of the service.
I have talked with friends about the need of a smart tool which allows consumers to compare mobile phone plans based on a user’s preferences and life style. I noticed a simple flash-based tool on Telenor site. Just compare this with the unfriendly page at PTA site which lists everything. Telecom is a complicated industry and an important job of a regulator is to use best tools to make life easy for its audience. Its hard to over-emphasize the importance of Usability when it comes to consumer awareness in emerging telecom markets.
This blog was started by Babar Bhatti to share and analyse new and interesting developments in Pakistan Telecom industry. More ...
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