State of Telecom Industry in Pakistan

DIDX+Voip in Pakistan+Super Technologies=Rehan Allahwala

TM has written a success story explaining the above equation. I want to share an excerpt here.

Super Technologies started its journey from the (then) innovative idea of Internet faxing back in 1987, morphed into a VoIP service company with a Pakistani network, changed to a hosted VOIP platform and finally, the team hit the sweet spot (incidentally as a by-product) of becoming a marketplace for an unusual telecommunication resource that nobody had not spotted before in the same context. The company has a number of developers working OUT of Pakistan.

So what is DIDX and what do they do? DIDX is about selling and buying an unusual, untapped asset that a lot of telecos are sitting upon - the E.164 numbers they give out to ‘their’ subscribers who take one (or more) service from them.

One of the core forces behind DIDX is Rehan Ahmed Allahwala. Rehan works alongside his American mates who front the company worldwide in commercial and marketing domains. Rehan leads the team that works on new ideas …… Read more.

On a related note for job seekers, Super Technologies is hiring for full time staff and interns - see this post and check out their site to learn nore and apply.

With so many new voip companies it has become increasingly hard to keep track of their offerings and service quality. Since may voip providers introduce new twists, it makes it even more difficult to compare the services. To solve this problem, a number of sites have come up with comparison information. For example see this site which lists many services providers and their rates country by country. Click on the image above to see rates for Pakistan, subject to change of course. Last time I checked, this site advertised 3 cents per minute for calls to Pakistan.

Here’s an extract from a useful Information Week article which provides good summary and links to other comparison sites, like the one above:

• Numbers that ring where you are. Telephones have always tied together service and location: You got local rates and could receive calls when you were at home, but not when you were traveling. Services like GrandCentral and TalkPlus break that link, relaying calls made to local numbers across the country or around the world to whatever phone you want.
• Free calls . . . to the right people. Several new services are trying to win customers with free calling — even for international calls. Jajah, for example, lets you call other Jajah users free in seven countries (and hopes you’ll find the service, which lets you make VoIP calls on your regular phone without special hardware, so convenient you’ll spend enough on other calls to make them money).

Read more »

Continuing the discussion on VOIP in developing countries and in particular in Pakistan, this post looks at the issues with regulating VOIP and the Grey telephony market. Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) defines Grey telephony as: the use of illegal gateway exchanges to bypass legal PTCL gateways and terminate/originate international traffic, including through VoIP gateways, GSM gateways, WLL phones, mobile SIMs or other related equipment. This traffic may then be distributed onwards using WLL and mobile numbers. It is claimed that gery telephony costs losses of over Rs. 3 billion annually.

Of course the laws regarding unauthorized or illegal use of VOIP vary from country to country. Developed countries regulate the technology to protect consumers and to encourage competition. Developing countries view VOIP as a legal and revenue issue and try to exert control over it. Many times its the law which is vague and does not clearly specify clearly when VOIP is allowed and when its not legal.  Last year in Pakistan there was lot of hue and cry when a software company in Islamabad was harassed on suspicion of illegal VOIP activity - it proved to be a completely baseless allegation. See this article for a good roundup of the story and for the different scenarios of VOIP usage in Pakistan. This kind of blatant use of authority and regulatory uncertainty combined with lack of technical knowledge by the authorities is a major obstacle for VOIP adoption and hurts the business deeply. Operators deserve to have a clear and predictable regulatory framework that helps to guarantee returns on investment.  Please note that the picture above of a VOIP lab (courtsey Flickr) is just for illustration.

In the paper Future of voice and VOIP, referred to in my last post there is some interesting discussion which I’ve included below with my comments.

Grey markets can offer cheaper rates because of the high profit margins that may be charged by incumbents that enjoy a monopoly (such as PTCL which had a monopoly a few years ago). For example, a caller might have to pay the 100 Rs for an international call that costs the incumbent operator about 3 rupees. Against this background, and despite legal crackdowns in various countries, the grey market looks set to flourish in Africa. According to Russell Southwood of Balancing Act, in most African countries the grey markets can be substantial (accounting for between a quarter and a third of international call revenues), and this has exerted strong downward pressure on prices.

Here’s some more commentary from the report about Pakistan’s VOIP situation:

PTA has issued technology-neutral licenses. VoIP services may be offered by Long Distance & International (LDI) and Local Loop (LL) licensees. 11 companies in Pakistan offered VoIP in 2005. Some new operators are looking to deploy IP-based networks and PTA is working on the necessary arrangements to tackle issues of QoS, numbering plan, internet telephony and costing methodologies etc. ISPs are not allowed to offer VoIP.

ISPs are licensed as either Electronic Information Service (EIS) or Non-Voice Communication Network Service (NVCNS) providers, neither of which permits licensees to allow voice over their data circuits.

Read more »

I came across an interesting paper at the ITU site titled “The Future of Voice” - you can also get the paper here at State of Telecom in Pakistan. This paper is a good guide to VOIP technologies and how different countries are dealing with it. It also talks about the future growth of voice markets and the technology trends which accompany it. In my next post I’ll write about the mention of Pakistan’s case in this paper.

At a related ITU workshop on this topic on Rauno Granath, Nokia’s Director of New Growth Markets and Networks, predicted that the worldwide number of subscribers to mobile telephony will reach 4 billion by 2010, and about 80 per cent the growth will come from lower income, emerging markets.

How will the Evolution of business models evolve to reach low-income consumers? This huge rowth in worldwide mobile subscribers means new business models must be created to meet the needs of low-income subscribers in emerging markets. The illustration below is an interesting way to look at it.

Source: “Voice services in new growth markets,” presentation by Rauno Granath, Nokia.

The paper also has a good number of illustrations, tables and data.

Pakistani business community, bloggers and consumers have been asking for a sensible VOIP policy for a long time. Finally we see a glimmer of hope - PTA has published a consultancy paper on VOIP which invites comments by all. The 58-page - written by a consultant, Naseem A. Vohra - is a good summary of VOIP technology and VOIP situation in Pakistan. You can download the paper in pdf format from PTA site or from telecompk blog.

The paper addresses legal issues, policy issues and issues related to licensing and regulation of the service. Even though comments are inivited on this paper I doubt that anyone at PTA is eagerly waiting for the comments.  But even if the fate of our input is unclear this is no reason to not participate in the process. This may be the best time to provide your input and feedback to VOIP policy. I suggest that all bloggers aggregate their reader comments on this topic and send to PTA - perhaps on paper, just in case PTA has difficulty using the complex technologies of e-mail or Internet.

Here are a few excerpts from the paper. The idea is to give you the flavor of what points are raised and options presented. One has to go through the paper to make sense of some of the points below.

There are four options to deal with the situation.
1. Liberalized option – all forms of IP Telephony service are legal with minimal regulation.
2. Incremental option – some forms of IP Telephony service are legal with significant conditions placed upon IP Telephony entrants.
3. Consultation (largely “wait and see”) – a public consultation is underway to seek opinions before definitive rules on IP Telephony are issued;
4. Prohibition – IP Telephony is illegal except for use in the core network i.e. long distance and international networks which almost all LDI operators have deployed but it does not touch the customer.

Comments are invited on
i) Conclusion that option3 and option 4 are not viable anymore
ii) Conclusion that VoB will catalyze the growth of Broadband.

Comments are invited on
i) Conclusion that telecom sector in Pakistan has already started migration from circuit switching to packet switching
ii) Conclusion that the boundary between VOIP and gray traffic is not clearly defined
iii) Conclusion that regulation of IP Telephony will not push the prices further down

Comments are invited on
i) Conclusion that Incremental Approach is the right way to go.
ii) Proposal that IP Telephony offerings are placed under three categories
iii) Proposal that category 2 offerings are split into two types i.e. “IP IN” and “IP OUT”.
iv) Proposed recommendations for IP Telephony authorization.
v) Proposed amendment in Broadband/Internet Licenses

This post examines the challenges faced by PTCL and its future prospects.  As we know the Etisalat owned PTCL has been engaged in battles with new competitors and regulatory body (PTA) on one hand and faces internal organizational issues on the other. Its profits have been sliding. Notwithstanding the grand claims by its executives, Will PTCL be able to reverse the trend and prove to be a good investment?

Background
In the last couple of years the impact of deregulation and increase in competition in telecommunication industry in Pakistan has been increasingly felt by PTCL. This phenomenon is not unique to PTCL - incumbent providers all over the world have gone through this difficult transition from being a monopoly to a free market competitor.

Let’s take a look at 2006 financial results of PTCL (As of Sep 30, 2006). The following is based on the information posted on PTCL web site and as reported on Business Recorder.

- During the period under review, PTCL added net 108,000 new working connections to its network. Overall, PTCL’s sales revenue for the first quarter was Rs.16.9 billion as compared to Rs.17.7 billion during the corresponding period of last year.
-The company announced net profit of Rs 8.4 billion translating into an EPS of Rs 1.64 for the first half of 2007, a decline of 23 percent over the corresponding period’’s net earnings and EPS of Rs 10.8 billion and Rs 2.12 respectively. The major factor for the decline in the top line was six percent downfall in the revenues from Rs 34.9 billion in first half of 2006 to Rs 32.7 billion in IH/FY07 owing to rapidly declining market tariffs
- Slide in profit is a continuing trend … question is when would it be stable? Investors do not welcome this uncertainty.

Threats and Weaknesses
* Increased competition in long distance continues to exert pressure.
* VOIP use is increasing despite ambiguous and discriminatory policies - this will eat into its profits (example: international outgoing calls). Note that PTCL itself is also utilizing VOIP technology (from iBasis) and as a result it has reduced its international rates drastically in 2007. Rs 2/min call to US is cheaper than Rs 2.5/min call to mobile phone.
* Bandwidth rate dispute with PTA is been dragged in court: if PTCL loses it will be a major cost, EVEN IF PTCL wins the case their artificially high bandwidth rates cannot be sustained.
* Paknet, the Internet service provider arm of PTCL continues to incur losses due to poor managment and lack of network optimization.
* PTCL-V, the fixed wireless phone service is poor.  They should use some their marketing Rupees and use it for better service delivery, correct billing and competent customer service.
* Recent censoring fiasco  and its poor handling exposed deep problems with administration and bureaucracy at PTCL. It was yet another major public relations disaster.

Strengths and Opportunities
o Made large capital expenses on network improvement to stay competitive.
o Ufone is performing well though Warid and Telenor are tough competitors. PTCL, Ufone’’s profitability increased by 49.2 percent to Rs 977 million in 1H/FY07 as compared to Rs 655 million in the corresponding period last.
o IPTV rollout can change the game, if done right it will tilt the odds in PTCL’s favor. It will make sticky bundles possible (tv+pohne+mobile) with say a single bill for convenience.
o With over 2 million lines PTCL is the largest WLL provider. 1134 base stations cover 720 cities and capacity is being added.
o Local service revenue is ok, paying bills through phone is a commendable start.
0 Has vast infrastructure and real estate assets which can be leveraged further.
0 Global connectivity reliability has been improved. PTCL is expanding the long distance and infrastructure side through spreading out two SEA-ME-WE submarine cables.

Conclusion & Recommendations

Report from The Nation.  A latest study conducted by Nokia pointed out that the people in Pakistan prefer style more than the need of being connected. The study says that the new devices combined with a attractive fold design with quick cover keys is bringing out substance to style, which is more acceptable in Pakistan as compared to other markets in the region of Asia and Asia Pacific. The study said that for innovation-conscious users ‘we need to offer intelligent and entertaining multimedia functionality in an easy to use, ultra slim package’.

Talking to The Nation regarding the study and cell phone users preference for Nokia in Pakistan, Tomi Paatsila, Vice President of Mobile Phones Sales and Market Operations for Nokia in the Middle East and Africa said that the users in Pakistan had surpassed others in the demand for innovation in technology.

He said that the cell phone users in Pakistan were involved more in style, which was beyond their expectations. He said the users in Pakistan needed style and design more than other features.

He said that Nokia was considering of doubling its investment in Pakistan looking at the response. He said that Nokia has conducted a comprehensive and detailed study of mobile phone users and Pakistani users have surpassed their forecast in the market which will be over 3 billion subscribers by 2008.

Tomi said that youngsters demanded innovation in multimedia computer that brings the complete experience to a sleeker body. He said that Nokia has created a very eye-catching device using premium materials to enclose world-class features and experiences.

Read more »

I have written about VOIP and voice over internet services here and here. These voip services are changing the way expatriate Pakistanis communicate with Pakistan. These voip services are one of the factors which will cause Pakistani phone numbers to change from 7-digits to 8-digits (see my post about this). At the same time the rates of international calls have dropped dramatically in Pakistan because of increased competition in long distance arena.

However there is nothing like dialing a local number and reaching your friend or family anywhere in the world. This is becoming quite common with many VOIP companies providing this service. You are given a Pakistan phone number and that number is pointed to your phone number abroad. So far so good. But one has to be careful before signing up for such services. Often the companies providing these services are new and share little information about their background. Sometimes they packup and close shop leaving users without service and the pain of a non-working number. For these reasons it is better to choose established and reputable companies which can provide better service. I am often asked about these services so I keep an eye on what’s out there. Usually for $30-40 you can find a service with unlimited incoming calls and perhaps a few hundred minutes of outgoing calls.

As part of my research, I have been testing the call forwarding service from Vonics. I was provided with a Lahore phone number and that number rings on my home phone in US. The service is about $30 per month - more info here . The voice quality is superb and customer service is prompt. The interesting thing about Vonics is that they provide phone numbers in 37 countries and (depending on the plan you choose) they also compete with top-notch players such as Vonage and Packet8 by allowing unlimited calls within US/Canada. Vonics told me that more plans will be introduced very soon.

I believe that this will become a popular and common service and many other players will jump in. The price will likely fall from $30s to $20s.

Have you tried any such service? Please share your experience with others.

In 2006 Wateen-Motorola WiMAX project in Pakistan created a lot of buzz all over the world. Many similar trials and services are being offered around the World. However it is still a big unknown if Wimax will be a success in emerging markets of Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and China. Can WiMAX deliver its promise of affordable broadband with wide coverage? Some skeptics think that WiMAX is more of a hype created by industry and not a reality yet. Of course adoption by public will be the proof of its success.

In Pakistan, Wateen’s project is going ahead full speed and it might be available for public in later half of 2007, according to Business Recorder. According to some blogs and discussion forums Wateen may offer WiMAX to 22 cities in the first quarter of 2007.  Malaysian owned Dancom also started offering Wimax in Karachi, starting with the business community. Their prices are still high for consumers.

Let’s take a look at the WiMAX technology and how can it meet broadband needs of today. See illustration below (source Telecom Magazine)  for end-to-end view of WiMAX.

The WiMAX Forum, an industry coalition, defines it as:

WiMAX is a standards-based technology enabling the delivery of last mile wireless broadband access as an alternative to wired broadband like cable and DSL. WiMAX provides fixed , nomadic, portable and, soon, mobile wireless broadband connectivity without the need for direct line-of-sight with a base station. In a typical cell radius deployment of three to ten kilometers, WiMAX Forum Certified™ systems can be expected to deliver capacity of up to 40 Mbps per channel, for fixed and portable access applications.

Point-to-multipoint wireless solutions based on WiMAX could have the potential to address the performance and economic challenges associated with providing cost-effective broadband access in the infamous last mile. The graphic below (source Telecom Magazine) shows how a wide range of end users can be served using which of the IEEE standards e.g. IEEE 802.16e-2005 for data mobility.

In addition to broadband Internet access, applications that are supportable with WiMAX include instant messaging, multiplayer interactive gaming, streaming media, VoIP, video and teleconferencing, and media content downloads.

As explained here, a typical WiMAX operation will be comprised of WiMAX base stations deployed in a cellular fashion to provide ubiquitous coverage over a metropolitan area. WiMAX base stations can be connected to the edge network by means of a wireless point-to-point link or where available, a fiber link.

Major Players

Some of the major names include: Motorola, Intel, ZTE, Samsung, Alcatel, Alvarion, Sprint, Aperto Networks.

From the US mobile phone proivders, Sprint has emerged as a champion of WiMAX. Sprint announced that mobile WiMAX is its 4G wireless technology of choice. It plans to begin building an entire Web-based phone network tuned to WiMAX starting next year. Intel, Motorola, and Samsung have invested heavily in the technology.

Challenges

There are plenty of issues which can bog down WiMAX. Here’s a brief overview.

One wonders if 2007 is the year when Wimax becomes mainstream? At least Motorola believes so!

Continue below to read some opinions from the Telecom Press. Read more »

I see some interesting developments for free or cheap calls to and from Pakistan using Voice over Internet Protocol - i.e. Internet Telephony. This is in parallel to new services (Rebetel and FreeCallPlanet for instance) in US and Europe which allow international calls through mobile phones for the price of regular domestic calls. For a recap of Pakistan’s VOIP situation see my previous posts about free calls to Pakistan and Skype. Also see this post from KO for historical background.

In 2006 there was a lot of turbulence around VOIP in Pakistan. The policy of PTA towards VOIP has never been clear. Some companies in Pakistan - Braintel for instance - have started offering services but they are under the threat of violation of current policies. Some companies are using VOIP to route calls from Pakistan to abroad - that is they provide you a Pakistan number which rings on your US phone - for a monthly fee of $30-50. In future there may be a possibility of a package for calling Pakistan for $10/month flat from FreeCallPlanet.

PTA raided many illegal gateways and claimed that such “grey telephony” setups were costing it millions of rupees. There was an unfortunate incidentas well in which a software startup in Islamabad was wrongly accused of using VOIP termination and its innocent CEO was jailed for many days. This caused a lot of uproar from Pakistan Software professionals and organization.

As a response to all that PTA has made this announcement on its site:

The main issue here is the termination fee - the amount PTCL wants to get for routing the call through its infrastructure (PSTN). This is the reason why international calls to Pakistan are still so expensive as compared with calls to US or Europe etc. That is why Pakistan does not show up on FuturePhone (not in service anymore) list of countries where you can call for the price of a domestic call from the US. By the way Etisalat has been doing the same thing in UAE and has blocked Skype there. It is high time that PTA fixes this mess by opening up VOIP and allows free market competition to roll in.

As this post is being written, ITU is hosting TELECOM WORLD 2006 Asia in Hong Kong. It is one of the leading events of the telecom world, “bringing the world’s leading ICT companies, decision-makers, organisations and governments together, Telecom WORLD features a major exhibition, a high-level Forum and numerous opportunities for meeting, discussing, networking and getting business done.”

One of the most interesting part of this event is the Forum where leaders (see a few leading speakers below) get together and discuss the technical, economic, social and policy matters surrounding telecommunications and ICT in general. The theme for this forum is Living the Digital World which seems quite appropriate given the fast-paced changes digital technology is making in the world.

There are many hot topics in the agenda such as broadband triple play, digital content, Wimax etc. While each of the above topic merits in-depth discussions, I’d like to point out to one of the most important subject for the world today: Next Generation networks for Development. The decisions of today will impact how tens millions of people in developing countries with low income levels can join this information revolution. In my opinion, telecommunication related technologies have a vast potential to change these people’s lives.

In the ITU conference the Telecommunication Development Symposium will cover how telecommunication can enhance development. More information about this theme is here. Excerpts below:

Developing countries have made tremendous strides towards increasing connectivity by using fixed, wireless and mobile technologies. At the same time, there is wide consensus that the next phase of networked communications will be based upon Next Generation Network technologies that promise to achieve enhanced connectivity through cost-effective and sustainable infrastructure development and management.

The concept of the Next Generation Network (NGN) covers the transition from current to future packet-based infrastructures, which is essential to take advantage of new opportunities for development and to bridge the digital divide. It spans both the fixed and wireless worlds so that the same services can be delivered no matter what access technology is used — whether it is a mobile device, a fixed network broadband connection or a fixed wireless connection. As a result, NGNs promise to foster the use of communications for greater socio-economic development, including E-education, E-health, and E-government, and enable countries to boost productivity and growth.

Participants and attendees will learn what NGNs look like, which NGN applications can succeed in developing countries, whether existing business and regulatory models will be applicable, and whether developing countries can move beyond existing technologies to a state-of-the-art wireless NGN world. They will also discuss what kinds of handsets and devices will be most appropriate, how end users will pay for broadband services such as IPTV, VoIP and e-health services in an NGN environment, and what kind of NGN policy developing countries should embark upon.

I hope that after this conference a concrete action plan is published and follwed so that we can see some results and its not all talk. The representatives of developing countries need to take the lead on this.

Is Skype a good option for making calls worldwide?

Skype - the immensely popular Internet phone product - has 50 million users worldwide though I don’t have an idea of its users base in Pakistan. It uses a proprietary technology which leverages every user’s PC resources to route calls. One of the most impressive thing about Skype is how it manages to work through all sorts of network security features which usually block similar services.

Here’s an illustration of how Skype works (Courtsey:Business Week). Here is Skype’s official explanation.

In this post I’ll try to assess if skype is a worthwhile tool to have. For starters Skype is free so all you need is a PC and Internet. PC to PC voice and video communication is free with Skype and with many others (Google, Yahoo, MSN). The real question is about making calls from PC to phone numbers. Calls from Skype to US and Canada are free till 2006 end.

According to WiredPakistan users and other feedback, dialup works reasonably well with Skype for some users and broadband speeds of 128 Kbps or more definitely work quite well. Skype is a good communication tool for broadband users but it is worth trying by dialup users as well. Use it before it starts charging for calls or gets blocked!

Here are some helpful tips if your connection is not that fast:
–Users on dialup or narrowband should avoid multi-tasking.
–Use a decent PC .. Skype needs at least
* 400 MHz processor; 128 MB RAM; 15 MB free hard disk space
* Sound Card, speakers and microphone