State of Telecom Industry in Pakistan

I discussed the WiMAX evolution in Pakistan earlier. The recent launch of wi-tribe has definitely elevated the level of competition in WiMAX market in Pakistan. Now the latest news is the expected launch of Qubee an Augere brand for WiMAX services in Pakistan.

Qubee is a new and exciting company providing fast, reliable and competitively priced broadband internet services to residential and business customers across Pakistan. We believe that everyone should be able to enjoy trouble-free access to the internet and the world of opportunities that it brings. Our aim is to make a magical internet experience available to everyone, everyday, without exception.

Qubee is the creation of a group of global telecoms professionals who saw that a new technology called WiMAX could really change the internet experience for millions of people worldwide.

The details of the tariff and packages offered is not yet mentioned on their website, www.qubee.com.pk.

They are starting in Karachi, but quickly plan to expand thier network and cover other cities nationwide. The current coverage area for Qubee can be seen on the following link.

Qubee’s launch right after the launch of wi-tribe reminds me of the year 2005 when at the GSM front we saw Warid following Telenor’s launch. Nevertheless Qubee will bring on-air the fourth WiMAX operator of Pakistan, the other three being Wateen, Mobilink Infinity and the recent Wi-tribe. Will this start a price/data-rate war among the WiMAX operators? This will only become clear with time.

Wi-Tribe has now officially launched its Wi-MAX services in Pakistan. The official launch press release is as follows.

Launches largest wireless broadband Internet service in Pakistan

Doha, June 30, 2009: wi-tribe, a Qtel Group company, today announced the official launch of its wireless broadband service in Pakistan, its largest market to date. The launch phase will include the cities of Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore, and Rawalpindi.

“Today, a new milestone is achieved in the evolution of wi-tribe and the realization of our vision to become one of the top 20 telecom players by 2020,” said Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohammed Bin Saud Al-Thani, Chairman of The Qtel Group. “Following our launch in Jordan, Pakistan marks a major stepping stone towards our expansion strategy and our intention to leverage the scale and strengths of The Qtel Group in order to deliver the latest technologies to our customers and continue to enhance services across our operations,” added Sheikh Abdullah.”

Dr. Nasser Marafih, CEO of The Qtel Group and Chairman of wi-tribe, commented: “Consumer broadband is at the heart of the Qtel Group strategy and a major pillar of growth. The launch of wi-tribe in Pakistan is a very important moment for all of us at The Qtel Group as it reflects a major stepping stone towards our commitment to bring broadband wireless access to more people, to connect individuals and businesses more easily and to improve access to the internet in all new and emerging markets.

“Broadband penetration levels in new emerging markets are currently very low compared to markets in the region. However, consumer demand for wireless services is growing at a fast pace. So we will continue to focus on this area in the future as we see good business opportunity and significant growth potential,” added Dr. Nasser.

Shaikh Abdulrahman Ali Al Turki, Chairman and CEO of A.A.Turki Group A.A. Turki Group of companies (ATCO), commended on the growth and success achieved by the wi-tribe group stating, “At ATCO we are extremely pleased with wi-tribe’s developments since its establishment in 2007. The addition of Pakistan to our tribe is proof of our firm commitment to bridge the digital divide and bring to emerging markets the best in connectivity and ease of access. It is about time these markets got excellent quality service.”

“wi-tribe uses WiMAX technology to provide customers with the advantage of broadband internet access wirelessly, giving them the option of accessing the internet whenever and wherever they choose within the network area,” commented Sami Hinedi, CEO, wi-tribe Group. “We strongly believe in improving the lifestyle of our customers by understanding their needs and offering them the best personalized customer experience. We want to provide solutions that are simple, easy and valued by individuals, businesses and the Government,” he added.

wi-tribe is a focused and dedicated consumer wireless broadband provider and will offer instant connectivity with applications tailor-made and simplified to accommodate the needs of every customer. The wi-tribe service will deliver broadband internet access through the ‘plug in and play’ option offering speeds of 256Kbps, 512 Mbps, and 1 Mbps. The process of becoming a wi-triber is extremely simple and beneficial. The wi-tribe service uses an efficient and highly effective plug and play modem which provides online access on the go. Internet users in Pakistan will experience the best in consumer wireless broadband service and wi-tribe’s unique customer care experience.

The official website has details for packages that wi-tribe is offering in Pakistan.

With this launch the WiMAX competition will definitely boom in Pakistan.

Those who have used the wi-tribe services, do share your experience with us.

[Press release via Zawya.com]

Formed in April 2007, Wi-Tribe is the product of a joint venture between Qatar Telecom (Qtel) and A.A. Turki Corporate Trading and Contracting (ATCO), together with a proactivepartnership with Clearwire (USA). Wi-Tribe is planning WiMAX based wireless broadband launch in Pakistan. Recently Wi-Tribe Pakistan announced that it is deploying its InternetProtocol (IP) backhaul network using DragonWave’s Horizon Compact radio system.

DragonWave’s advantages include high speed data links, true IP architecture,minimum power consumption, and zero heat footprint,” said Mohammad Sadiq, CEO, Wi-Tribe Pakistan. The Horizon Compact is a small, 9-inch-square, all outdoor radio, integrating traditional indoor andoutdoor backhaul functionality. It is used to deliver connectivity across mixed topology networks including ring or mesh architectures. Wi-Tribe can easily and remotely expand the capacity of individual links up to 400Mbps as traffic needs dictate.

Read more »

E-Learning Series: By Phil Cruver, President of KZO Education

Learning 1.0 was about the delivery and management of online courses usually consisting of downloading text-based materials and perhaps the streaming of lengthy videotaped lectures for anytime and anyplace viewing. Learning 2.0 leveraged the vast array of interactive and collaborative Web 2.0 technologies and concepts such as social networks, wikis, podcasts, and blogs with user-generated content as the cornerstone. Learning 3.0 is now appearing on the evolutionary path, which when coupled with emerging digital distribution networks and mobile computing technologies, has the potential to revolutionize education.

In a recent meeting with senior strategists at Intel Corporation, they made it clear that “global extreme learning” and the challenges of its “massive scaling” have been on their radar for years. These articulate and seasoned technology strategists confessed that that they are struggling with defining the composition of extreme learning tools and the supportive ecosystem that must be developed for scaling global education. They also indicated that Learning 3.0 could be the missing link between two of Intel’s major initiatives: WiMAX for wireless broadband access and Atom microprocessors for next generation computing devices.

So what is Learning 3.0 and what technologies will shape its emergence and evolution? Consider: There are 455 WiMAX deployments underway in 135 countries covering over 430 million people and despite the slowing global economy, at least 100 more operators will deploy additional wireless networks this year. Atom chips are fueling the exploding market for low-cost, low-powered Netbooks, which will grow 66% this year to more than 27 million units and is expected to continue at breakneck rates.

Intel has committed $100 million annually for global education and has a huge footprint in Pakistan claiming to have trained 175,000 teachers in this nation with illiteracy exceeding half its population of 175 million – the 6th most populated country on the planet. Coincidentally, Pakistan possesses the first nationwide WiMAX network covering over 22 cities, making it ideal for showcasing how emerging market countries can leapfrog directly into next generation learning technologies.

Could extreme learning with new computing tools and digital distribution technologies assist and advance education in Pakistan? The recent announcement that a national curriculum will be approved in six months for introduction to the classrooms in 2010 may require a back-up strategy. Political risks and bureaucratic delays are inevitable and the costs and logistics for printing and distributing millions of traditional textbooks, vulnerable to obsolescence, are staggering.

According to USAID: “In Pakistan, the cost of teacher professional development is 25.5 times the cost of training a secondary school student. Producing low-grade teachers at such a high cost is a matter of concern”. It is estimated that there are about 1.4 million teachers in Pakistan, which must be doubled if universal education is to be achieved. Therefore, rather than continuing to incur “High Per Capita Cost for Low Grade Teachers”, with advanced and affordable streaming video technologies, lectures from top Pakistani teachers could be recorded for distribution over the Internet resulting in a quality education for millions of students.

WiMAX broadband connectivity to the Internet, coupled with Netbooks, would provide the infrastructure for producing and archiving quality video lectures for teacher professional development. This could serve as a scalable solution for augmenting education in Pakistan with access to the latest and best classroom practices and also provide a parallel back-up strategy.

Netbooks promise to debut this summer at $99 and at $10/school/month, all 25,000 public secondary schools in Pakistan could have access into a “Window on the World” with WiMAX/EDGE. At $3 million a year on a capital investment of about the same amount, this would be a pittance to pay for access to a global world of knowledge where traditional textbooks cannot compete. Furthermore, Learning 3.0 may provide the only opportunity to rapidly scale quality education for millions of Pakistanis wishing to compete in the 21st century global economy.

About the Author: Phil Cruver is President of KZO Education, a provider of comprehensive digital communications and training solutions for government and commercial clients. He is a serial entrepreneur, founder of three start-up companies, and has served as CEO of two public companies. Phil recently visited Pakistan and welcomes those who are interested in assisting education in Pakistan to join this Social Network.

Augere, a European telecom company, had plans to offer WiMAX in Pakistan. It needed frequencies in the 3.5Ghz and struck a deal with Telecard in 2008 to get these licenses. Later on, it was discovered that there were disputes about these licenses between Telecard and Wi-Tribe. In a recent court decision, Telecard is said to have lost, causing a sever blow to Augere’s plans of WiMAX service. Wi-Tribe will continue with its WiMAX plans. The situation will become more clear when the details of court decision come forth.

This contention has lifted the value of 3.5 GHz licneses up significantly from the previously mentioned figures of US $22.5 million. After all, this is the basis on which WiMAX service can be offered. As mentioned at Telecom Grid Pakistan:

According to the agreement between Telecard and Wi-Tribe, Telecard was to have the licenses split in such a manner that 14 of the 28 newly issued licences would be assigned to Telecard the 3.5 GHZ band frequencies. These 14 licenses were then to be transferred to Telecard subsidiary Broadband Services (Pvt) Limited, 90 percent of which would have then been bought by Wi-Tribe.

According to Tariq Qureshi, an expert on licencing matters, resolution should be achieved as rules are in place already. Tariq makes the following points.

There is provision in WLL licenses of use-it-or-loose it. Stipulated period to go into operations was 2 years - later extended to 12/07. All who didn’t start operations and can be send cancellation notices to make spectrum available for the serious players (like Augere and Witribe).

Many license holders would like to get a refund in USD for the amount paid. The smart ones sold off their companies at 10X-20X. This is what Telecard is trying to do and what DVCom, Dancom and others did.

Augere & Witribe need 21+21MHz FDD or 42MHz TDD to have a commercially feasible network. The following companies are not utilizing the allocated spectrum: PTCL and Worldcall are amongst the few, and should surrender the spectrum and get refunded.

PTA will be able to recover the 2.5G spectrum from SunTV that was allocated for MMDS as the 15-year license should be expiring in 2010. The 190MHz license was issued can be used by 6 separate operation.

There is much to hear these days that the latest developments in the LTE technology will leave behind WiMAX. In a broader perspective, the situation is different. The article below from Orange Business Live discusses it.

Although the WiMAX vendor community has been pushing the notion that 2009 is the year of WiMAX, the recession coupled with an aggressive push towards mobile broadband’s LTE (long term evolution) could put the technology’s wider uptake in jeopardy. Nortel, for instance, has left the WiMAX market and Alcatel-Lucent has diverted R&D spend from WiMAX to LTE, although it seems committed to pushing WiMAX and cites this shift as being down to WiMAX now now being productised.

“LTE is our future,” said GSMA chief executive Rob Conway at the recent Mobile World Congress. “You can talk about WiMAX if you want, but it is a sideshow to this main event.”

Scorching words, but with analyst firm ABI Research predicting WiMAX subscriber revenue growth of more than 4,500% this year, the technology is far from over and done with. As ABI principal analyst, Philip Solis, points out; “To ignore a growth market in a down economy would be a mistake.”

Other analysts agree and point out that mobile WiMAX already has commercial deployments while LTE lags behind. Daryl Schoolar, at In-Stat, thinks WiMAX and LTE will take different paths. “Most of the operators looking to deploy WiMAX come to it from the fixed network space,” he says. “Most of the early operators supporting LTE come from the mobile space. These operators want to use LTE to increase capacity and peak rates on their existing mobile networks.”

Instead of LTE being a threat to WiMAX, Schoolar thinks HSPA may well turn out to be WiMAX’s true competitor. From an enterprise point-of-view the battle being teed-up in the vendor industry is divisive and, in many respects, counter-productive. End-users don’t care about the method, only the ease-of-use it offers and the bandwidth it provides. From that perspective, WiMAX is here now and can be used whereas LTE remains a concept for the future with most operators unlikely to be deploy it until 2011 or 2012.

[Via Orange Business Live]

Editor’s Note: Please join me to welcome Arsalan Mir. Arsalan is an undergraduate student in final year Telecommunication Engineering at FAST-NUCES (Karachi). He is the Vice-Chairperson of IEEE student branch at NUCES. Arsalan can be reached at arsalan.tmir@yahoo.com.

WiMAX in Pakistan emerged commercially with the launch of Wateen in August 2007. Recently, Mobilink has come up with its WiMAX brand ‘Infinity” and now it looks like the competition will soon elevate with Wi-tribe and TeleCard entering the WiMAX service race in Pakistan.

Wi-tribe is a joint venture of Qatar Telecom (Qtel) and A.A. Turki Corporation for Trading and Contracting (ATCO) in partnership with Clearwire. Wi-tribe is already offering services in Jordan and in Pakistan it has emerged out of the acquisition of majority stake in Burraq Telecom that occurred more than a year ago. They plan to showcase the real world benefits of Wireless Broadband to Internet community in Pakistan.

We will be offering high-speed Internet that is simple, affordable, and a portable alternative to fixed broadband. The Motorola WiMAX solution frees customers from the fixed line services.
Mohammad Sadiq
CEO, wi-tribe Pakistan.

Motorola has signed a multi-year WiMAX contract with wi-tribe Pakistan limited. Motorola has commenced deploying wi-tribe’s WiMAX network in the 3.5GHz spectrum. Commercial launch is expected during 2009.

TeleCard, a fixed wireless operator renowned for its Go-CDMA service, will also roll-out WiMAX under their current brand Supernet which is already offering internet services.

Newest development at the TeleCard will further enhance the Company’s profitability and will be a significant contributor to stakeholder satisfaction on an ongoing basis.
Aamir Niazi

Vice Chairman, TeleCard

Augere,an European company focused on broadband delivery in emerging markets, has been selected by TeleCard as the principal contractor to design and build the network such as to position a great offering / value proposition for the growing and very quality sensitive internet user community in the country. The equipment deployment has commenced in initial phase and the company expects the offering of service commercially by next year.

References:

[i] http://witribe.pk

[ii] http://daily.pk

[iii] http://www.telegeography.com

I have covered the launch of Mobilink Infinity here and here. Alcatel-Lucent is Mobilink’s partner for the WiMAX technology infrastructure. Here’s a link to a video about this effort and the plans for Mobilink’s WiMAX rollout to other parts of the country.

In this video, Naeem Y. Zamindar, Vice President & Head of Broadband Business Division at Mobilink discusses his company’s WiMAX rev-e strategy, outlines the company’s goals and aspirations for “Mobilink Infinity”, and highlights the reasons that they selected Alcatel-Lucent for the deployment. The video also features Karim El Naggar, Vice President and head of Alcatel-Lucent’s WiMAX activities.

More information from Alcatel-Lucent is available here.

Alcatel-Lucent is one of the major infrastructure vendors in telecommunication Industry. Alcatel has supplied WiMAX related gear to Mobilink Infinity for its first commercial deployment in Karachi this October. Some of you may have heard that Alcatel-Lucent has supplied a comprehensive WiMAX Rev-e solution including both fixed and nomadic terminal devices from various CPE partners.

The Alcatel-Lucent WiMAX network leverages existing sites and equipment in Mobilink’s GSM network, helping to optimize deployment economics. In WiMAX area, Alcatel-Lucent has 34 commercial contracts and it is engaged in 70 trials going on around the world.

However, it may not be well known Alcatel handset division was sold to a Chinese company few years ago and it is not part of Alcatel-Lucent any more. Alcatel mobile phone handsets are available in Pakistan. Here is some pricing information from the official dealer in Pakistan. Products pictures and specifications are available at Alcatel Pakistan web site.

Here is the list of Alcatel Mobile Phones collection 2008 with Prices.
OT-S211  Rs.2,750
OT-S621  Rs.6,200
OT-V770  Rs.8,700

Here’s an interesting piece from the national media about WiMAX technical issue and problems with the customer service. The title is “Customer Disservice” and it appeared in The News and in Spider magazine. According to the latest update, this particular issue got resolved. There was a huge disconnect between the billing, provisioning and customer service departments. That leaves me wondering: how many other WiMAX users are in similar situation?

The quality of service on WiMAX is said to be mediocre on average: good some days and average for most of the time. This is consistent with feedback from this blog and popular online forums such as Wired Pakistan. Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Broadband was to be my salvation, and it was a joyful day when I got my connection on 17th July, provided by a company who I will not name in case they get litigious, but their name begins with a W and ends with n work it out for yourselves. For eighteen days I lived in a kind of net-heaven. YouTube, streaming radio and TV stations from around the world, email at the speed of light, no longer restricted to graphics-lite sites wonderland! Then it rained. What the franchise people who sold me the connection (and got the commission for doing so) had failed to mention was that the indoors receiver worked poorly in temperatures above 40C (it hits the high forties in Bahawalpur), the signal strength was badly affected by humidity and, the real clincher, that in reality I needed an externally-mounted receiver to get the full benefit of their incredible service. Fine, when can you come and install one? Errr, we don’t have any at the moment, Sir. Things have gone sharply downhill from there.

Having been assured that the external units would be arriving before Ramazan I waited patiently. There were several visits to the franchise, numerous visits by an engineer who at least had the sense to talk to me honestly and nothing by the way of a broadband service. The engineer called again two weeks ago, fiddled around a bit and lo and behold he managed to get a signal into the receiver and restored my connection. Delighted, I asked him if I could top up my account. Sure, no problem he said, which is when The Big Problem arrived. W wanted to bill me (3025rps) for the time I was unable to receive their service at which point there was a large explosion in downtown Bahawalpur and a very worried customer services lady on the end of a phone in Lahore. She told me that the long-promised external receivers were nowhere on the horizon, that she could understand why I was a touch irritated and promised to forward my complaint to her superiors.

As of my last correspondence with Chris Cork, the author of this article, the issue was resolved by Wateen.  Getting the concerns published in the national media must have forced Wateen to act quickly to resolve the matter. Perhaps the voice of ordinary consumer in Pakistan will become more powerful with time but for now it is an uphill battle.

Special Post By Tariq Mustafa

The second commercial Wimax network went live in Pakistan (Karachi) recently. For the South Asain nation of 160 million (half of which are young adults), these cutting edge WiMAX networks are a cause for celebration. Mobilink (one of the most successful ventures of the international telecoms giant Orascom Telecom) which has the highest subscriber base of over 30 million subscribers (out of the total 80 million users nationwide) has launched its Wimax brand called Mobilink Infinity.

The network is essentially 802.16e based mobile Wimax and has been launched in Karachi, the commercial capital of Pakistan and also world’s second most populous city in the world with 16 million citizens. The CPE costs Rs 6,000 ($77) one-time and monthly subscriptions are available in 256kbps, 512 kbps and 1 mb categories. The integrated VoIP based analog voice port allows local loop telephony to the user with preferential rates for the (dominating) Moblilink network.

Earlier Pakistan got the worlds largest nationwide Wimax Network from Wateen Telecom , a new telecoms business venture of the Abu Dhabi Group that also owns the popular cellular brand Warid in Pakistan (and now in some other countries - Congo and Georgia). Wateen’s Wimax (built on Motorola Wimax gear) has received mixed response and some believe that the less than perfect launch of the much hyped product has more to do with the company’s operations rather than the technology limitations. The problems have accumulated enough to give Wimax a bad name. New operators are expected to avoid the technology name (wimax) in their upcoming products in the local market due to this reason.

A few weeks ago, Worldcall (an overseas investment of Omantel of Oman in Pakistan) launched its CDMA EvDO services on top of its popular CDMA based Wireless Local Loop voice services. Marketed under the catchy marketing campaign using Footloose, the service uses Anydata’s USB modem as its EvDO CPE.

Some estimates puts Pakistan’s teledensity as the highest in the region.

Related Posts: Here, here and here.

A version of this post also appeared at DailyWireless.org

The 2008 P@SHA ICT Awards ceremony was held at Marriott hotel in Karachi on Oct 31. A number of ICT companies and individuals were awarded the prestigious P@SHA award. Some of the companies which received the award have been covered at TelecomPk earlier.

This was an excellent and upbeat ceremony which broguth together some of the brightest minds in Pakistan high tech industry. Some bloggers covered the ceremony live from the event site using Wateen’s WiMAX connectivity. Our congratulations to all of the award winners and the runner-ups. Here’s a short list of telecom related winners.

• See n Report - People Powered News - won the award in the ward in e-Inclusion & e-Community Applications category.
• Jaadu won the Communications Award. The Merit in this category went to FoneiTall developed by Five Rivers Technologies.
• The Converged Media Solutions application developed by PixSense won the Digital Media & Entertainment Award.
• Umar Saif received award for Chopaal, the group messaging product.

For more see this post from Jehan Ara, who writes the best picture stories about celebrations and get-togethers.

Furqan Qureshi, GM Strategy & Corporate Business of Wateen Telecom, who, when invited, actually wanted to know why we hadn’t asked them to sponsor the event. Within minutes he and Athar Jamal, GM Marketing had come back to me with a commitment for the Gold Sponsorship. And when I suggested to Furqan that we wanted to organize live blogging from the event, he arranged for a 2 MB wimax connection