State of Telecom Industry in Pakistan

The success of iPhone has not only changed the way phone companies and handset makers operate but also impacted other media channels. For instance, companies are now racing to build marketplaces for TV programs that act much like iPhone apps, able to interact with social-networking services, play games, call up movies and other Web content—all using a remote control, rather than a computer equipped with browsers. With PTCL and Wateen in the smart TV game, its only a matter of time before we see more of this.

I previously wrote about some initial steps that Verizon took. with social apps as widgets. Yahoo was also an early contender with a technology for TV applications it calls widgets. The TV applications are designed to exploit new consumer electronics devices with Internet connections that are beginning to appear in homes in significant numbers. More from this article:

Vudu, a startup that offers a streaming movie service; DivX, known for a popular format for storing digital movies; Boxee Inc., which offers software that lets users view Internet content on TVs; Roku, which sells a set-top box for receiving Internet content; and Syabas Technology, which announced a set-top box at CES.

Read more »

The SEVP Commercial, PTCL, Mr. Naveed Saeed in an interview with The Nation has hinted on Life Line service to come in future.

The company has been preparing for offering a bouquet of services in the coming days that it had already launched for corporate consumers so far. The bouquet that would be called the ‘Life Line’ would include security, entertainment, infotainment, and high DSL Internet.

Looks like its time to make IP Cameras popular along with IPTV and DSL.

Guest Post by Naveed-ul-Haq, Member, ISOC Pakistan Chapter. Assistant Director (ICT), PTA.

Editor’s note: Mr. Naveed-ul-Haq attended the fourth annual Internet Governance Forum meeting in Egypt in November as an ambassador of The Internet Society (ISOC) , Pakistan Chapter. We thank him for sharing his experience and views with us.

While living in today’s world of technological modernization where humans and devices are in continuous interaction with each other, Internet evolved as a unique innovation that now has became a necessity. This evolution didn’t happen overnight, it has an historic link with ARPANET (a defense based project initiated in 1963 to exchange data packets over computer network). Then after 25 years of research and development of standards, Internet came into use of common man during early 90’s.

Read more »

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.

Read more »

We yesterday mentioned in our tweet about Mobilink President Rashid Khan hinting on the leapfrog to 4G bypassing the 3G. He also tells about the broadband ‘infinity’ expansion plan and their plan with booming mobile banking concept. The complete story is hereunder.

Read more »

WaridTel Pakistan which is doing great with its prepaid brand ‘Glow’ and Prepaid GPRS bucket and is the favorite among users who voted in the poll being conducted here at telecompk, but faces criticism on lack of marketing its VAS. Recently it has come up with another unique VAS of ‘IM over SMS’. Unique because this one doesn’t need GPRS to get on IM.

Read more »

Here are the key points, taken from Morgan Stanley Mobile Internet report of Dec 15, 2009.

The mobile Internet is ramping faster than desktop Internet did, and we believe more users may connect to the Internet via mobile devices than desktop PCs within 5 years.

Read more »

We use Internet all the time, but the majority know not much about the history of it. While browsing YouTube, I got a chance to see the “History Of The Internet” in this animated documentary explaining the inventions from time-sharing to filesharing, from Arpanet to Internet.

Read more »

Huawei was once regarded as a low cost telecom equipment provider. An excerpt from a Wall Street Journal article which talks about how Huawei is now challenging its competitors with better quality products.With sales of $18.33 billion in 2008 it has a huge impact on telecom industry. Read more »

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.

Read more »

While browsing Wateen’s website www.wateen.com I noticed a number of usability issues and lack of attention to detail. Telecom is a complex business and a god website is a must for companies to provide information and service to their customers. A website which fails to provide the right information and a good user experience is a business failure. I wanted to highlight a few issues found on Wateen.com in the hope that others will use it for learning on what NOT to do.

Read more »

PTCL and DSL Operators have signed a DSL agreement for provision of broadband services under the auspices of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA). The signing ceremony was held at PTA HQs, Islamabad where Chairman PTA, Dr. Mohammed Yaseen, Member (Finance) Syed Nasrul Karim Ghaznavi, Member (Technical) Dr. Khawar Siddique Khokhar, Senior representatives of PTCL and DSL operators were present. Under this agreement, DSL operators will now have a choice to acquire IP bandwidth from any other operator in addition to PTCL which will enable DSL operators to offer broadband services at competitive tariffs.

Read more »