State of Telecom Industry in Pakistan

An important aspect of true internationalization of the Internet involves support of major languages such as Urdu. Dr Sarmad Hussain of National University has recently achieved a big success with the inclusion of Urdu on the Internationalized Domain Names evaluation site. A big kudos to Dr. Sarmad and his team for getting to this milestone.

Urdu is on a tier 2 list of languages that are being evaluated. Dr. Sarmad has asked people to visit the Urdu Wiki pagesfor Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) and give feedback on the points requested.

I was able to browse to the original link which has the Urdu alphabet in IE and Firefox. However I could not use it directly in this post because I need to set wordpress up to support Urdu. Follow this link to go the wiki page.

Read on to see the list of few thing that you can do to test the behavior based on your own working environment. Read more »

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.

• “productive usage” vs “# of connections”
• results vs usage of broadband internet (catch the mobility wave)
• Urdu on the web (in normal Urdu script)

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.

Here’s an Urdu related entry - Urdu SIM service from Warid. It so happens that the previous story about Urduwas also related to Warid. The whimsical mix of English and Urdu terms in this FAQ (Amoomi Sawalat) follows the same pattern as discussed earlier and my previous criticism is equally valid here. The Urdu menu service seems to be useful I would think that Urdu sms will be supported as well. Overall it is a good first step towards localization.

Nokia has made a welcome move to further tap into the Islamic VAS market, as reported here and at many other blogs. The N73 phone from Nokia was introduced in Middle East this week. It is packed with Islamic content and applications. This special edition should become popular in South Asia too, as it supports Urdu and has many desired features.

The new Nokia N73 Special Edition includes a unique portfolio of pre-loaded applications including a collection of Azkars for the morning and the evening, an Islamic Organizer with audible alarms for the five daily prayers, a Qibla direction indicator and a Hijri calendar. The Hajj and Umrah application provides simple step-by-step descriptions for the Hajj and Umrah, while the Ramadaniat application explains all the instructions and rules for the Holy month of Ramadan. Also included with these on the 2GB miniSD card are two Islamic e-books and a Universal Dictionary application which supports English, Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and French.

‘In addition the Nokia N73 Special Edition offers unique Ramadan Greetings, a very special customized e-card application that enables families and friends to send greeting cards through SMS or MMS in celebration of this Holy month’ said Neil Gordon, Vice President for Multimedia, Nokia, Middle East & Africa, ‘This new edition is a reflection of Nokia’s commitment to continuously provide consumers with tailored services, based on their needs and requirements.’

In addition to the pre-loaded content consumers using the Nokia N73 Special Edition can also download other additional applications. Downloadable content includes the Name of Allah application, exclusively available for Nokia users as well as a third e-book.

N73 is available in 3G, quadband EDGE/GSM networks.

If you or someone you know has used this phone, please share your feedback with other readers of this blog.

Thanks to TM for sharing these at his blog. I loved these ads for their topic, message, presentation, and the fresh approach to marketing. As Atif pointed out with a few other ad campaigns covered here and here, this is a great way to provide a public service message and promote your brand. The fact that it is a departure from the usual ads in Pakistan makes it even more fun.

You can see additional ads in this series here.

As Independence Day is approaching, Mobilink again has taken lead by erecting Independence Day billboards in Lahore & other cities. Mobilink has always been on the forefront of societal marketing activities and have always been very keen on Corporate Social Responsibility. The copy statement on this billboard states “Hum Bolein Azadi Ki Zuban” (Translation: We speak the language of freedom) which is very well integrated with Mobilink’s brand image statement i.e. “Reshaping Lives”, thus posing a brand personality of someone who is aggressive, mature & independent, thinks very well and cares, all of which further ensures brand loyalty and adds value to brand equity.

As far as Mobilink’s Independence Day campaign is concerned, specifically this particular Billboard and generally the whole campaign (including the TV commercial) is not promoting the company or any of its particular product or package but it is all about Pakistan, people of Pakistan, their hopes, issues and their lives besides the message of unity and love and the one who is communicating this message looks much familiar.

The cute little girl with Pakistani Flag in the background catches one’s attention at once. Besides freedom, the message in Urdu is also trying to remind the nation that we need to reassure commitment to our country that we will keep our promise with Mr. Muhammad Ali Jinnah & our land to make it prosperous one day. The Billboard has been applauded by all here in Lahore.

I wish others would also get inspiration, especially Government institutions, PTCL, NBP etc must also respond and I would wonder if they take lead next time. Even if it is all about business,  two thumbs up to Mobilink and other private companies who struggle for subscriber base through social activities. Compare this to Government institutions who had a monopoly since the beginning and our nation has always been on the giving end.

I often wonder how the lay person in Pakistan feel about all the technical jargon thrown at them. By the way this is a global issue. There are plenty of confusing technical terms in today’s world and telecommunication industry, for one, is notorious for not doing a good job at explaining its products, services or bills in a user friendly way. On top of it, when all this jargon is exported, along with the technology, to other countries it can add to the confusion. Pakistan suffers from this imported problem too.

Here’s what got me started on this track. I was looking at the Urdu section of a bilingual service brochure from one of the mobile company in Pakistan (click image to see full resolution version). I found it odd to see the English terms written verbatim in Urdu. What good is an Urdu section if it is indiscriminately peppered with English terms? Of course each term needs to be handled on case by case basis because for some terms it makes sense to assimilate the term and for other cases the correct Urdu term (or both English and Urdu) should be used.

SIM card  is a good example where the term is better used as is. For other terms (for example menu, services, setting) can’t these phone companies get some good Urdu copy writers and translators? May be they can recruit from the Urdu TV channel staff :)

A related trend is the increasing use of Urdu in the cyberspace  in general and Blogistan(as Adil Najam calls it) in particular. And now there are quite a few phones - such as Nokia 6030 - available with Urdu menu and font support. I have also heard that authentic Urdu text messaging (not just roman text) is gaining popularity. Perhaps with all this surge of activity in Urdu (such as Urdu blogs and newspapers) there will be a return to Urdu phrases as well. While searching for Urdu keyboard software, I recently discovered many good Urdu sites, one of which is particularly interesting and I recommend visiting it: CRULP - Center for Research in Urdu language Processing.

Back to the brochure above - a few questions which came to mind after looking at the brochure:

• In the image above ‘Chatting’ is written in both Urdu and English in parenthesis. Using both languages helps to some extent. Is this something which should be used more often?
• Has anyone tried to translate other terms such as value-added services or SMS in Urdu? But I doubt that anything like will replace  from the vernacular!