State of Telecom Industry in Pakistan

The two pictures below tell a tale. First one is from Daily Times and shows a man talking on his mobile phone while carrying a deep freezer on his motorcycle in Lahore. To me it looks unreal but that is not the point here. This picture is a symbol of dangerous driving situation in today’s Pakistan.The second picture below is rom a small town in the US. This town has prohibited the use of hand held phones in school zones during school times. The fine is about $214 and it has been enforced very strictly. I myself almost got a ticket.

This shows the shifting attitudes towards cell phones and driving in the developed world. It is now commonly accepted that driving and talking on cell phone at the same time is distracting and should be avoided. State of California has banned the use of cell phone (headphones are ok).

What a contrast!

Thanks to the ATP post Stunned, Impressed, or Horrified where I spotted the first picture. The second picture was taken by the author.

The PTCL website www.ptcl.com.pk is inaccessible as I write this. I can think of a few possible reasons:

a. PTCL came up with a great service offering and people loved it so much that the extra traffic crashed the load balancers (sorry, this is just too much of a stretch)

b. Someone got really upset with all the rate hikes and default pakcage activations and decided to throw a few virtual stones at the ptcl glass building. Hack job it could be.

c. The IT department of PTCL forgot to patch the servers (simple incompetence). Now this is very likely!

Well, we’ll know in a short time about the real reasons. After all if they can take Youtube down, it is much easier to take their own site down :)

Do you know if your SIM is really registered in your name? What happens if your SIM is not registered at all? Till recently it was not a big deal but now your SIM may be blocked. PTA has been making announcements about SIM data verification for a while (see this story). PTA has also sent tough signals by raiding and closing some franchises which did not follow the guidelines for registration. But this time the burden is directly on consumers: no matter who sold you the SIM, if it is not registered properly then it is subject to service blocking. See the warning notice from PTA.

As one can imagine this is a major problem for consumers. According to some estimates 7 million SIMs could be impacted. Some blocking has already started though I am not sure of the total number (1.4 million according to a source). It is a subject of debate on who is responsible for this mess but for sure consumers have to suffer and pay the price. This is what happens when government policies are not implemented consistently.

According to this post from MobilePakistan, subscribers can send a blank sms to 667 to get information about the registration status of their SIM. In case there’s an issue “you have to take the SIM along with a photostat copy of your National Identity Card to your mobile phone company’s Authorised Office and get the SIM ownership transferred in your name.”

Local media has given July 1st as the new effective date of this blocking. I think more time should be given to the public to clean up the mess created by the govt agencies. And there should be better communication and tools to help the consumers. There should be an online tool to tell you if the SIM is unregistered or not. This can help the expat Pakistanis who often buy a SIM when they are visiting home and then go back abroad.

After all is said and done this could help (to some extent) with a few things such as pranks, hackers and other abuse. At least people will realize that there are some rules to be followed - even in today’s Pakistan.

The recent BlackBerry security concerns raised by Indian Govt have been reported widely in press. To me it seems that governments around the world are struggling with controlling technology. Just a few weeks ago Pakistan made the headlines when PTCL inadvertently caused the youtube outage. Some wondered if the BlackBerry problems could spill over to Pakistan. I remember reading at TGP that security was the reason for the delay in introducing BB services in Pakistan … so hopefully we are past this obstacle.

Obviously the old-school bureaucracies have a hard time keeping up with the fast pace of technology. It seems that one fine day the Indian government realized that there’s a threat, reacted hastily and scared the market! To be fair, most government agencies tend to work in that mode.

Excerpt from WSJ:

Indian telecommunications operators are negotiating with the government on a framework for BlackBerry usage that will allow the Indian market to expand but also meet concerns for national security.

India’s government isn’t comfortable with the way information transmitted via BlackBerry is encrypted because it’s too complex to be monitored, according to one industry official. The fear is that information can’t be monitored and that this could be a security risk.

These worries had caused some to speculate that India’s government might opt to block BlackBerry messages. But India’s telecommunications secretary Siddhartha Behura downplayed the prospect, saying Friday that “there is no question of banning at this point,” according to Reuters. He said the government is talking to telecom operators and to BlackBerry manufacturer Research In Motion Ltd. of Canada.

Must see video. Saw this at All Things Digital. As they say this is the price of success!

The iPhone Dev Team, the folks responsible for the notorious iPhone jailbreaks, have cracked iPhone 2.0–before the software has even shipped. After decrypting the version of 2.0 included in the recently released iPhone SDK, the Dev Team jailbroke it so that it will run most any application 

With more and more drivers using phones while driving, the situation on the roads is becoming alarming. There are teenagers who are trying to read or send text messages while driving and then there are adults who are so addicted to their blackberries that they have to use it behind the wheel.

I came across an interesting paper about the use of hands-free devices with mobile phones while driving. The study and conclusions make sense: Mobile phones contribute to traffic fatalities and hands-free laws appear to reduce fatalities. The paper is based on data from the US but the study should be valid anywhere in the world. I am sharing the abstract below, the full paper can be accessed here.

Most rich countries in the world and four US states require drivers talking on mobile phones to use hands-free devices. However, previous research has failed to arrive at a consensus on the effect of mobile phones on traffic accidents yet has concluded that the effect of hands-free and hand-held phones on accidents is similar.

Read more »

We have talked about fighting mobile phone snatching previously in this post and mentioned the negative impact this problem in a few other posts. This topic keeps coming up elsewhere and I wanted to share this post from Karachi Metro Blog. The discussion there is more interesting actually. For instance Malaika suggests shooting the snatchers at sight. Just in case that you miss that shot (don’t tell me you step out without a gun …) , here are some other ideas, including mobile insurance. 

It is generally agreed that the PTA sponsored IMEI approach is not effective. Lets start off with a software based solution. Mantissa writes:

For my actual phone (which I’d really hate to lose), I use a program called PhoneGuardian(runs on Symbian phones and cannot be uninstalled), that will communicate back critical location information as well as subscriber information (secretly) in case it is ever stolen. I can also invoke a siren remotely as well! It also gives me the option of remotely immobilizing the phone completely (to prevent the party from getting into your address book/ media etc.) At least with the above, it improves my chances of locating my phone as well as kill the value to the phone to just it’s scrap parts (so no one benefits from my loss) - note however, that once repossessed, I can restore it easily too.

My thought is that it would be good if such anti-theft program is bundled with the phone (installing apps is not for everyone), it would be a good deterrence solution.

Another reasonable option is of insuring your mobile phone against theft or loss. Mobile Zone, a mobile handset retail chain in Pakistan, offers insurance service. Some comments from Kashif from the above post about their service:

MZ doesn’t charge anything extra for insurance. Its just that their rates are bit higher than open market. I was told that in case a set is snatched/lost, I have to register an FIR and will get replacement within 10-15 days.

Rate Comparison (Nokia N70):
MZ: 15,800
Shophive: 16,190
Beliscity: 14,930

On the idea of how a phone attracts thieves, here is a response: “I dont think a phone snatcher would pick n choose the model of the phone. They will more likely select the target based on how easy or hard it would be to snatch/steel. If the person is an easy target it would not really matter if they r holding an iPhone or some old crappy model.”

Then there’s the issue of the second-hand phone market in which most of these stolen phone end up. Is there a way to stop it? One idealistic recommendation is below. With newer phones however security is expected to be much better though.

Each phone must have an serial number. That number should be listed (submitted) to all service providers. (via police or 3rd party online database - This could be a great business opportunity too by the way) So when the thieves steel a phone - they sell it in the black market - the purchase of that phone goes to the phone service provider and will not be able to get the service and will be told that “Sir/Madam you have a stolen item, we cannot provide u service. Besides that the buyers/consumer will have the option to check/verify “before” purchasing a used cell phone if it is stolen or not.

I came across this interesting use of mobile phones to track kids in Japan. More on this below but this story prompted me to write about the bigger issue of kids and technology. The amazing pace at which communication technologies have advanced has both positive  and negative aspects. In this post I’ll limit the scope of discussion to this question: What should a parent know about young children’s interactions with mobile phones? 

According to this research 10-12 is the average age at which kids get a mobile phone. Reasons most often mentioned security and peace of mind. Naturally kids like to play with gadgets and they can learn plenty of things even if they just play games. Usually parents will depend on their kids to configure the phone’s different features. But that’s not all - there are many potential hazards as well. In a (relatively) conservative society such as Pakistan, access to a mobile phone (even without network access) can create some difficult situations. Teenagers are early adopters and usually are tech savvy but they are also emotionally immature. An article in the June issue of Flare lists the following dangers when children use mobiles: snatching, scamming, exposure to inappropriate material, (possible) health danger and risk of other criminal activity.

The other aspect is how the phones are used? What limits are set for the usage? The social activities of the youth is a whole different chapter which is not possible to cover here… simply put mobiles make it easy for kids to go towards uncharted territories. I don’t think most kids need a phone - unless they can demonstrate a real need AND maturity.

Back to the tracking story, from Japan’s Cellphone Edge.

A Japanese company, Tokyu Security has built a system that tracks a child’s movement across public transportation, school and pre-school domains and reports the results via mobile phones to parents. Every time their child passes the installed checkpoints, parents get a notifications such as the one shown below.

Invasion of privacy or parent’s right? Read more about this technology to track kids in Japan.

The notifications are usually emailed to parents’ mobile phones reporting such information as the child’s name, time and station where the child got onboard or got off the train. The checkpoints at school inform the time of arrival.

Tokyu Security makes use of PASMO cards, the rechargeable IC cards, and special reader equipment to implement the system. Scheduled for launch in December, the service will be offered at all Tokyu line stations in greater Tokyo except Setagaya line and Shibuya station. A subscription fee of JPY525 (USD4.66) must be paid every six month to keep the service activated. The service will target elementary and middle school children.

The ACM (Association of Computing Machinery) SIGCOMM Workshop on Networked Systems for Developing Regions (NSDR) will be held at Kyoto, Japan, 27th August, 2007.  SIGCOMM stands for Special Interest Group on Data Communication.

The purpose of NSDR 2007 is to provide a venue for researchers to propose and discuss ideas and to participate in the sustainable development and deployment of Internet and communication technologies specifically aimed at developing third world countries.

NSDR program is online and the conference sessions will be broadcasted live. See DRITTE site for background of organizers.

The following workshops will be held in conjunction with SIGCOMM 2007.
- Mobility in the Evolving Internet Architecture (MobiArch)
- Large Scale Attack Defense (LSAD)
- Networked Systems for Developing Regions (NSDR)
- Internet Network Management 2007 (INM)
- Peer-to-Peer Streaming and IPTV Systems (P2P-TV)
- IPv6 and the Future of the Internet (IPv6)

Technology blog site Engadget is creating waves with stories of complete unlock of iPhone. It first reported iPhoneSIMFree’s success in unlocking the iPhone — a project that’s been ongoing since the late June launch of the smart phone — and confirmed that the hack works. Engadget said the unlock remains intact even after applying the most recent firmware update, and posted a short video demonstrating the iPhone connecting to and making a call over the T-Mobile network.

The post claims that iPhone software unlock is legit, and we have proof. “We can confirm with 100% certainty that iPhoneSIMfree.com’s software solution completely SIM unlocks the iPhone, is restore-resistant, and should make the iPhone fully functional for users outside of the U.S.” said Ryan Block on Engadget.

Too good to be true? Nope — the iPhone software unlock mentioned a couple days ago is legit. As what seems like teams of people worked on various avenues to unlock this thing, the iPhoneSIMfree.com group was silently plugging away behind the scenes. Our own Ryan Block got together with them and demoed their wares and reports back with some detailed findings.

There’s also some talk that certain sites will offer unlocking services for a fee. Too good to be true, just rumours or a limited opportunity? The situation will be clear in the next few days. Who knows, I might go for one of these iPhones.

PTA is in the vigilante mode again. This time national security concerns are driving a campaign against fraudulent SIMs and to ensure that when issuing a new SIM, copy of the National Identity Card (CNIC) of the customer is obtained at the sale point. The mobile companies have been asked to share their existing subscriber information with NADRA as well. NADRA has found a large number of forged identity cards, it was recently reported in the media. This issue came up in the National Assembly too.

The PTA news release says:

PTA has started checking the unauthorized sale of new SIMs from 1st August across the country to ensure that new mobile connections are issued after proper documentation.

PTA would start sealing those franchises which were not complying with PTA instructions on issuance of new cellphone SIMs and concerned company will be asked to cancel its franchise. After these inspections, companies will also be asked to take remedial measures and ensure the implementation of PTA directives in this regard.

PTA has directed the mobile companies to get their data streamlined at their end by August 31, 2007. Companies will provide complete data of their subscriber base to NADRA for verification purposes.

From Technology Review Magazine. Also see this related posts from the past here.

Last week, researchers from a security company found a flaw in iPhone software that allows it to be remotely controlled. The weak spot was in the Safari Web browser, software that’s also used on Apple’s computers. “It’s a good example of how flaws in PC software show up in a similar guise on cell phones,” says David Wagner, a professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley.

Cell-phone viruses have been around for nearly a decade, but many experts believe that serious threats could become a serious problem in the next couple of years thanks to the gadgets’ growing computing power and complexity. “I think a large part of this is that cell phones are becoming miniature computers,” Wagner says, “and as a consequence, they are starting to inherit some of the same problems that we face with PCs.”

Many cell phones are scaled-down computers, and they can take advantage of some of the existing efforts to make personal computers more secure, such as using antivirus software. But cell phones have their own set of problems. For instance, mobile devices are easily lost or stolen; they are accessible via a number of methods, including the cellular network, Bluetooth, and, increasingly, Wi-Fi; and they have a limited battery life and constrained processor power. Researchers have only recently started to grapple with the implications of designing cell-phone security systems that encompass these and other challenges.

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