From 1st July 2009, PTCL and NTC numbers in Karachi and Lahore will change to 8 digits numbers. Add ‘3′ before PTCL numbers and ‘9′ before NTC numbers for dialing.
Example,
The PTCL number 466-xxxx will become 3466-xxxx and NTC number 912-xxxx becomes 9912-xxxx.
More at Fixed Line Numbers Going 8 Digits.
It was being heard from quite a long time that fixed line numbers will be going 8 digits to increase the pool of numbers available. This is now confirmed as reported by different media channels and news papers. An excerpt from Business Recorder follows.
Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd (PTCL) would shift its fixed line numbering plan from 7 to 8 digit series as per the instructions of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority. Initially migration from 7 series to 8 digit series would take place in Lahore and Karachi.
As per details, Digit “3″ will be added in all existing 7 digits numbers of Karachi and Lahore except the numbers starting from “9″. Digit “9″ will be added in all existing numbers starting from “9″. An important point to remember is the numbers are being added to existing numbers not area codes, with the exemption of army exchanges, which would remain same.
For the customer’s awareness and facilitation, the new series plan will run parallel to old one for a period of three months w.e.f. July 1, 2009 till September 30, 2009. The period from October 1, 2009 till December 30, 2009 will be covered by announcements which would be made in order to facilitate subscribers/ customers.
For Rs.2000 per month you can have blazing fast Internet on the go from PTCL EVO service. There’s a one time cost of Rs 6000 (USB) or Rs 4000 (PCMCIA card) . If you have a land line you pay the broadband charges with the land line bill, otherwise pay at PTCL One Stop Shops or Customer Service Centers. Limited availability for the broadband speeds - Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi - for now. But the lower speed CDMA version is available in other areas. Here’s what PTCL says:
You can use this service in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi & Mirpur for broadband while traveling. Your Evdo automatically switches to 1 X in non Evdo Coverage areas. Which means you can also use internet everywhere in Pakistan where there is Vfone 1900MHz network. Please note that in non Evdo coverage areas your internet will be connected on lower speed (153Kbps). PTCL provides a very large coverage area where you can stay connected.
For more information including caveats and support for your operating system, look at the main EVO service page and the FAQ page. As usual the service has been getting reviews ranging from great to average. But overall I think PTCL has a winner with EVO, if they can sustain the performance and service.
Here’s a teaser from the review by TechLahore.
I got a sleek looking, black EV-DO wireless USB dongle with an extensible antenna, that happens to go perfectly with my T60. The dongle has a built USB storage, so all I had to do was plug it in and the setup program started… from the dongle itself! Pretty cool. It took me about 5 minutes to run through the install, and boom! I was in business. My first stop was google.com, which loaded instantly. I could already see the difference in performance but I decided to measure it a little more objectively. Speedtest.net is always handy for that.
The choices for audio conferencing in Pakistan are rather limited. PTCL is one of the main provider of audio conferencing service with features such as UAN (Universal Access Number), PIN number, scheduled or on-demand conference and up to 120 participants per conference.
The website is sloppy, even by PTCL standards. Just read for yourself:
Our Audio conferencing services are easy to use with interesting billing packages, designed for maximum user comfort and convinience with web integrated interface.
For details see this FAQ page or call PTCL helpline at +92 111-227-027.
If you have tried PTCL or any other audio conferencing in Pakistan, share your experiences with readers.
It used to be that the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and DSL operators had to buy Internet bandwidth from PTCL. For the last 2 years this has been a matter of contention whereby ISPs wanted the option to buy from other providers (such as TWA) who have entered the telecom backbone bandwidth market. As reported by The News:
The PTA, after a series of negotiations, has finally issued the minutes of the meeting held between the ISPAK (Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan) and the PTCL on 5th May 2009 in which it was decided that the ISPs will be free to buy Internet bandwidth from third party operators and would be allowed to link their optical fibre cable to one PTCL exchange per city. The PTA has also decided that the PTCL will not increase charges of its leased circuits used by the DSL operators for inter-exchange bandwidth only for the next year.
The PTA has reserved a judgment on settling the DSL wholesale and retail prices of the PTCL and committed to resolve this long outstanding issue within a month. Pakistan has come a long way from the early days of Internet in 1990s with only one submarine cable connecting the country with rest of the world. The country today has three submarine cables linking Karachi with Southeast Asia, Europe and North America named as SWM3, SMW4 and TWA, first two with the PTCL and the third with a private operator. The total Internet bandwidth to the country stands at around 18 gigabytes, growing at around 45% every year for the last three years.
Cross Post from Basit Ali’s Blog
Nokia and Etisalat have announced a collaboration that will allow Nokia to provide advance Internet services to Nokia users in the region. Etisalat will provide a convenient means of payment to Nokia users willing to subscribe to paid Nokia services. As a first step, Nokia users will be able to purchase games on Nokia’s N-Gage platform and pay for Ovi-Maps services. The purchases will be made over the air and Etisalat will charge the amount to the customer’s bill. This is a very convenient and safe option as opposed to the use of Credit cards and other similar payment options. UAE will be the first country from the region to offer this service in Q2 2009.
This is very interesting to mention here that if you can use this service to pay for mobile applications, games and services, you can use it for other payments as well. For example, you can use the same mechanism for sending gifts to friends, you can use it for buying items at grocery stores or paying other utility bills, and everything is eventually charged to your monthly Etisalat bill.
In Pakistan, Etisalat is holding shares in PTCL and a similar payment model has been in place in the country for payments of PTCL DSL service and IP TV subscription. Those who subscribe to DSL or IP TV, the subscriptions are billed to the customers in their monthly phone bill. I would love to make other payments in the same way if it adds the luxury of convenience to the payment process.
In the first funding of its type, Universal Service Fund of Pakistan (USF) provided contracts worth Rs. 1.4 Billion in total, for providing Broadband Services in the un-served urban areas of Faisalabad Telecom Region (FTR). PTCL and Wateen Telecom won this round of contracts: PTCL will provide 72,500 broadband connections and Wateen Telecom will provide 16,500 connections. The Faisalabad telecom region comprises of districts of Faisalabad, Jhang, Sargodha, Toba Tek Singh, Khushab, Bhakkar and Mianwali, excluding the served city of Faisalabad.
Readers of this blog may recall the earlier posts that we did to highlight and appreciate the work by USF and its leadership. Universal Service Fund (USF) is made up of contributions by telecom service providers of Pakistan. In the last decade, Pakistan has made impressive progress in providing voice telephony services crossing 60% tele-density, but broadband proliferation in the country is still very low and there are less than 300,000 broadband connections in the country. Furthermore, almost all these connections are concentrated in around 15 big cities of the country. Universal Service Fund (USF) is working to bridge that gap.
USF has ambitious and comprehensive plans to improve lives through broadband and connectivity. Read more information from the USF press release:
CEO of USF, Parvez Iftikhar, informed that FTR, has 56 towns and cities of various sizes with numerous potential broadband users like, hospitals, distance learning centers of Open University, Banks, NADRA centers/kiosks, Government Offices, Libraries, Courts, Industries and various other institutions, in addition to a population of more than 3 Million that could benefit. He further informed that a major highlight of this project will be the establishment of more than 250 Educational Broadband Centres in all the High-Schools and Colleges in these towns and cities, besides more than 100 Community Broadband Centres will be set up which will provide Broadband to those who cannot afford their own computers. He acknowledged the tremendous cooperation, help and support of the Ministry of IT and PTA, without which this landmark could not be achieved.
CEO USF also informed that bids for the next three similar projects have already been called through Press and Websites for the areas around Multan, Hyderabad and Mansehra. These will be followed by more projects till the whole country is covered. Moreover, bids for three more Projects of Basic Rural Telecom and two of Optic Fiber expansion in Baluchistan are also awaited.
Media has reported that Etisalat is thinking about gaining majority stake in PTCL. What would Etisalat gain from this? When will be a good time to make that additional investment? The core issue for Etisalat include the management of workforce and to capitalize on potential of PTCL. Without any insider information, my guesstimate is that ineffeciencies in PTCL are any where from 5-15%. What do you think? I think another interesting question to ask will be: Based on the recent performance of PTCL, will you buy PTCL shares?
Etisalat is considering raising its stake in PTCL from the 26 per cent it bought for $2.6bn in 2005 to 51 per cent, Mr Omran said, giving Etisalat operational control.
“We have an option in our original contract to increase our stake in PTCL by 25 per cent. However, timing as to when we will do it is not decided yet,” he said. “This is definitely an option under consideration but it is not happening in immediate future.”
Mr Omran said that although Etisalat had the first option to increase its stake, Pakistan government regulations allowed offers from other operators, and that could be a long procedure.
He said the company was also keen to bid for a 3G licence in Pakistan.
The news was circulating for a while that PTCL will increase bandwidth for its customers. It was announced on March 23 that the bandwidth has been doubled. It was a good move by PTCL and goes to show that it is a formidable challenge to compete against an incumbent. The rates start at Rs. 1199 for 1 MB unlimited (still higher than the ideal of Rs. 500-600 affordability threshold) and go up to Rs. 4999 for 4 MB unlimited.
PTCL management is pleased to announce the following tariff for broadband internet facilities for its valued customers, with effect from March 23rd 2009. The existing package of 512Kbps will not be offered to new customers. Existing 512Kbps packages customers will be upgraded to 1MB package, 1MB to 2MB and customers of 2MB will be upgraded to 4MB.
In discussion on PTCL Environmental Friendly Billing System many comments were not in favour of the green bill not just that it was also not accepted among the general consumers. In this regard PTA has stepped in to facilitate the consumers and have advised PTCL to start reissuing itemized bills.
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has resolved the issue of non-itemized bills of PTCL and has advised PTCL to issue itemized bills from this month.PTCL has started sending monthly bills to its subscribers without itemized details appearing on the bills from the previous month.
PTA convened a meeting on this issue. During the meeting, the Authority observed that this decision was taken unilaterally and without adequate logistic support for meeting consumer demands for itemized bills. The Authority asked PTCL to continue with provisioning of itemized bills to its subscribers. PTA has taken this decision in the interest of consumers and the telecom industry.
The consumer frustration could have be addressed with itemized bills on PTCL website, but then again how many consumers use internet to access it. if we wish to go paperless, we need to increase awareness on internet and broadband not only in urban areas but also in rural areas.
Despite the missteps of previous few years, it seems that PTCL has started to stabilize. Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) announced Rs 5.314 billion as profit after tax in the half year period ended December 31, 2008. A year ago the situation was quite different with a large loss. PTCL earning per share was Rs 1.04. Although details are not available yet but it seems that the combined progress made in LDI, mobile, WLL and Internet have started to pay off. The slight loss in number of fixed lines has not made much difference to PTCL. In telecom scale matters and even after all the new competition, PTCL still enjoys huge advantages.
It is slowly changing its approach to product bundling as well. In a recently announced promotion of “One On Net”, PTCL has taken an approach consistent with my advice of simplified calling plans.
Many Pakistani bloggers and software industry leaders have raised concerns about the lack of a payment processing gateway in Paksitan. Now - there are some indications that PTCL is working with Wateen to offer one in the coming days. Better late than never!
Assuming that this did happen, what are some of the things that will change? Will we see a flurry of innovative solutions? Will electronic and mobile commerce in Pakistan get a big boost from this? It certainly will remove one of the absurd obstacles which should not even have been an issue.
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