Part of the funding came from the U.S. Department of State under the U.S. Government’s Digital Freedom Initiative, which “seeks to encourage the spread of technology to the developing world.”

A 5-year-old boy in Pakistan no longer has to suffer without treatment of an irritating skin rash thanks to care from a doctor in a city 110 miles from his rural village.

The high-tech telemedicine system that made the treatment possible was implemented with the leadership of a company on the other side of the world: Armonk-based IBM Corp.

IBM was tapped by the State Department to lead a public-private partnership that includes Wateen Telecom, Motorola Inc., Medweb Inc., the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Defense Department Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center and the Pakistani government.

The telemedicine system links the “hub” of Holy Family Hospital in the city of Rawalpindi, Punjab province, with the “spoke” of District Headquarters Hospital in Attock, which has limited resources to treat thousands of surrounding villagers.

Doctors in Rawalpindi, armed with personal computers and videoconferencing equipment, “see” patients remotely and confer with their counterparts at the district hospital.

Medical records and information, including digital photos of skin lesions, for example, are shared via a wireless network provided by Motorola and Wateen Telecom and navigated with Medweb software.

Dr. Sadia Rafiq, the IBM medical consultant for the Pakistan Telemedicine Project, said just 16 primary-care doctors work in Attock while there is a need for 64.

There are no radiologists, pathologists, dermatologists or many other specialists. If a villager needs additional care, he or she often cannot afford the trip to the larger hospital in Rawalpindi.

As a result, Rafiq said, ailments that aren’t emergencies are ignored. Since the telemedicine project became active this summer, patients have come in with complaints that had been ignored, including a goiter that was untreated for 30 years.

“The simple diseases that are not treated before can now be treated,” she said.

Rafiq said that the marginally trained doctors at the district hospital weren’t skilled enough to diagnose many problems and that patients sometimes hesitated to come in for treatment at all.

“You could see the misery on their faces,” she said.

While the upper-middle class can afford to visit a private clinic, most people can’t afford to travel to Rawalpindi and pay up to 1,000 rupees for an ultrasound, for example, as many earn about 4,000 a month.

Pakistan has almost 179 million people. But more than 75 percent live in remote villages with access to fewer than 15 percent of all hospital beds in the country.

“We basically have very poor people,” she said. “They don’t have money for their bread and butter. They are living in remote areas.”

The telemedicine system gives them access to care without traveling and incurring big costs.

“They can stay with their families, in their own environment,” she said. “They don’t have to spend a lot of money, they don’t have to wait in a queue.”

In Pakistan, where IBM employs about 350 people, the company created a team of three people to implement the telemedicine solution with partners.

Nokia Xpress 5800, unveiled in early October, is its long-awaited touch-screen phone which heavily focuses on music services. Even though Nokia does not mention iPhone but everyone knows that it is the first handset from Nokia to challenge iPhone. Packed with cool features, it should be a big hit.

Research in Motion Ltd. is rolling out its first touch-screen phone in response to iPhone. It is named the BlackBerry Storm. Details are still coming out and it is said to work on “broadband networks on both sides of the Atlantic” and be exclusive to Verizon Wireless in the U.S. and to Vodafone Group PLC throughout Europe.

These phones just came out and I have not tested them personally. However there is plenty of media coverage and user-generated reviews and content on the web. Here’s a summary of some of the useful and relevant observations (sources at the end). Starting with Storm.

The Storm has a 3.25-inch screen — just under the iPhone’s 3.5 inches — and a durable design that makes it about 16% heavier than the iPhone. It will run on relatively quick third-generation broadband networks in the U.S. and overseas — a first for Verizon. But it doesn’t have Wi-Fi Internet access, which RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis said would drain battery life unnecessarily. Like the iPhone, it doesn’t have a physical keyboard, but rather touch-sensitive software that can emulate either a full PC-style keyboard or a triple-tap cellphone setup. It is expected in stores before the end of the year.

One distinguishing feature of Apple’s iPhone not possessed by the new BlackBerry or other smart phones: the ability of a user to zoom in and out by putting two fingers on the screen at the same time and spreading them or pinching them closer together. Apple has filed for a patent covering “multi-touch” technology in phones.

On Nokia’s Xpress 5800.

Finland-based Nokia has waited more than a year to respond with its answer to the iPhone, the 5800 XpressMusic smart phone. The device’s hardware and services — pitched to have mass-market appeal — include eight gigabytes of memory, a 3.2-inch screen and access to Nokia’s Ovi Internet-service portal.

The 5800 will cost around $400 when released in the fourth quarter, which includes the key holiday shopping season. This is competitive when compared with the rpice of an unlocked eight-gigabyte iPhone.

The Nokia phone’s touch screen won’t work exactly the same way as the iPhone’s, which allows users to zoom in and out using two fingers in a pinching or spreading motion. Nokia’s interface allows for only one touch point at a time.

Read reviews from other sites:
Engadget Mobile: Blackberry Storm and Nokia 5800
Mobile Crunch:  Storm,  Nokia 5800
WSJ: Here and Here

Meet brilliant young Jahanzeb Sherwani, the first developer from Pakistan whose application has been accepted into Apple’s iPhone App store!

Jahanzeb is going to talk at an event at The Second Floor (T2F) on October 11th at 7pm. He will talk about Jaadu - an application which allows you to connect to your PC through iPhone using VNC. A bit about his background:

Jahanzeb is a final year PhD student at Carnegie Mellon University and is working on speech interfaces for emerging markets in South Asia. He believes speech interfaces can be a revolutionary medium of interaction for a massive cell-phone consumer base that has, for the most part, not been able to tap into the digital revolution.

Please read the full post at In The Line Of Wire and while you are there, check out some other positive posts about Pakistan and the resolve of its people against all odds.

On Sundays the call charges for local, NWD & mobile calls will be as follows:

Local Calls: Rs. 1 for 3 mins. (On Net including Vfone)
NWD Calls: Rs. 1 for 1 min. (On Net including Vfone)
Mobile Calls: Rs. 1.25 for 1 min.

PTCL website had a note that Sunday Half Rates will not affect Pakistan Plus subscribers for NWD calls as their NWD minutes are already free till 2500 minutes but they will be able to make local calls and mobile calls on half rate. International calls will be charged as per regular/current tariffs.

How is USF different from Rabta Ghar scheme?

Rabta Ghar is an excellent programme started by PTA. But the nature and the size of the two programs are completely different. Rabta Ghar strives to establish “telecenters” in rural areas so that rural folks can come to the Rabta Ghar and make/receive voice and data calls. Whereas USF strives to “illuminate” entire areas in a manner that practically anyone in those areas can acquire his/her own connection. Telecenters will only be one sub-set of the USF projects – for those who cannot afford their own phones and data devices.

What plans and metrics do you have to monitor the performance and return on this investment?

Very simple. As per USF Policy we have specific laid down targets and we have to meet those targets. And with today’s technologies it is no problem to measure if those numbers have been reached or not. The measurements will be taken by professional technical auditors, who will mostly not belong to USF.

To elaborate with an example: In Mansehra Lot (consisting of the districts of Kohistan, Batagram, Abotabad, Haripur and Mansehra), there are a million people, living in 1,479 villages (spread over 11,366 Sq.Kms) who have no way of getting a phone connection. Therefore our targets are:

i. to give each one in these 1,479 villages, the possibility to get a phone connection
ii. to reach at least 5% teledensity overall, as a first step
iii. to have PCOs in villages/towns of the area that have a population above 2,000
iv. to have telecenters in towns with a population of above 10,000

The technical auditors will go to these villages and take measurements to verify that these parameters have been met, before the payments are made. The measurement work will be done in 4 phases in each Lot so that subsidies can be disbursed progressively against achievement of these 4 milestones.

Subsequently USF will hold a Bank Guarantee from each Operator worth 40% of the subsidy value and in case of any breach of contract USF will have the option of imposing penalties.

What is your budget and how do you apportion it for voice vs broadband?

The disbursement budget for the current year is more than 4 Billion Rupees but this is a misleading figure due to two reasons.

1. It shows the amount that will be disbursed and not the amount that will be committed by signing contracts with the operators. The committed amount is disbursed over more than one year as the projects take time to complete.
2. It must be understood that this kind of budget can only be indicative. The actual disbursement of funds depends on the subsidies determined through open competitive bidding. For instance last year we achieved our target of the number of Lots to be auctioned, however the subsidies demanded by the bidders turned out to be lower than our budget! For every 100 Rupees of investment, Operators asked 20 Rupees subsidy.

In a way this under “under-utilisation” of the budget was a good thing, in that the Operators’ stake was substantially higher. In the meanwhile this trend is undergoing change and the operators are increasingly asking for higher subsidies. As of now an investment of Rs. 5.3 Billion is taking place in those remote areas with only Rs.1.49 Billion USF subsidy.

As for its apportionment, let me answer your question by a pie char.

What criteria do you use to decide where to invest?

Our first priority is to go to unserved areas. We use data from different sources to determine which areas are really unserved. We take:
• topographic maps from Survey of Pakistan,
• satellite imagery from Suparco,
• village population data from Census Organization of Pakistan
• and finally telecom coverage from Telecom Operators

Based on this we gather the un-served areas into “Lots” and auction the Lots one by one.

In case of Broadband it was easier. We eliminated from our program, all those big cities where there is some broadband service available. Although we consider those cities to be under-served, we are not going into those large urban areas for the time being.

And in case of Optic Fiber again the decision was rather easy. We carried out a field survey to determine which Tehsils of the country do not have Optic fiber connectivity, which turned out to be 31% of the total Tehsils. That is where we have launched our programme.

The criteria as to which area to cover first, one tries to cover maximum unserved population in as short a time as possible. As in any endeavor we have are also learning as we are moving ahead. For example when we tried to auction the large Lot of Chaghi-Noshki in Baluchistan, no bidder turned up. So we broke up the very large Lots and also decided to first concentrate on Lots nearer to the served areas and then move outwards. Similarly in case of the project ‘Optic Fiber for all Tehsils’, we chose Sindh province first because that way we can cover maximum Tehsils with minimum KMs of Fiber cable – kind of low hanging fruits first.

It would be pertinent to mention here that all such proposals are discussed and debated in the Board where collective wisdom of Government as well as Private Industry is applied before such decisions are reached.

Let me add here that the level of support and help that we get from the Board Members is beyond what I ever expected – especially the Ministry and PTA. Without this we could not have moved ahead.

Babar: Many people do not understand the concept of Universal Services Fund. How would you like to convey what USF does?

Parvez Iftikhar: In order to spread telecom services to all corners of the country – universally – Pakistan Telecom Act 1996/2000 envisaged establishment of Universal Service Fund. All licensed telecom operators contribute 1.5% of their adjusted revenues to this Fund as part of their license obligations. Then, in order to utilize/disburse this fund for providing universal access, Government of Pakistan opted to follow Private Public Partnership Model. This led to establishment of USF Company under Section 42 of Companies Ordinance 1984. The Company is a private public partnership as it has an independent Board of Directors consisting of four members from the government and four from private sector industry/consumers. CEO happens to be the ninth Board member.

Utilizing the above mentioned Fund, USF Co finances spread of telecom services to previously un-served or under-served areas and makes it possible for the licensed operators to service those areas, on normal commercial (read: competitive) terms. Telecom services include basic telecom, broadband internet, Telecenters (for those who cannot afford the necessary instruments/devices)and so on. Challenge for the Company is to achieve these targets through a fair, transparent and efficient process. Therefore all fund disbursements are done by open and transparent competitive bidding, encouraging competition among telecom licensees.

The Company was established in early 2007 and the first employee (myself as CEO) was hired in May 2007. In less than a year-and-half, USF Co. is not only up and running as a company, it has already started basic telecom services projects in 7 different areas (“Lots”), for which contracts have been signed with Telenor (Malakand and Bahawalpur), Mobilink (Sukkar), Warid (DG Khan) and PTC.

(Pishin, Mansehra and Dadu). Bids for the 8th Lot (Kalat-Mastung) have been received and are under evaluation. Bids for another 3 Lots (Mirpurkhas, D I Khan and Sibbi) are under preparation by the operators. Bidding documents of another dozen such Lots are being prepared for auction.
Other than that, a project “Broadband for unserved urban areas” has been launched aimed at improving Broadband penetration in the country – especially in smaller cities and towns that are yet unserved. The first phase of this has been advertised, pre-proposal meeting with the bidders held and bids will be received in mid-November.

Reaching the far flung areas is normally expensive because either the Operators have to reach there by long strings of Microwave hops or via Satellite. Both expensive and unaffordable especially considering that these areas are low revenue areas. Therefore to address this problem USF has launched a project aimed to extend the reach of Optic Fiber Cable to all ‘Tehsils’ of the country (presently more than 30% Tehsils are deprived of any fiber connectivity). This will help telecom operators in extending all kinds of telecom services to all corners of the country.

In the very near future USF will also be launching Telecenter Projects aimed at introducing and promoting e-services in the rural areas of the country.

Babar: Please tell us about consumer representation on USF board?

Parvez Iftikhar: One of the 8 Board members represents consumers’ interests. For comparison – one Board member represents cellular segment of the industry, one LL segment and one ISP’s.

In addition consumers’ interests are protected in two ways:
a) The subsidy winner is obligated to follow all the tariff (and other) guidelines of PTA just as in the rest of the country
b) Subsidy winner is also obligated to share the new infrastructure with at least one other licensed operator so that USF funding is not used to create local monopolies that lead to exploitation of consumers.

Incidentally it is also ensured that no Operator collects more than 50% of subsidy that is disbursed. This keeps the interest of all operators in the process and no one operator gets away with major piece of the subsidy cake.

It might be appropriate to mention here that this subsidy is not the classical subsidy that normally comes out of tax-payers revenue of the government. This subsidy stems out of contributions of telecom sector and is spent within the telecom sector.

(To Be Continued ….)

The Garmin navigation devices which are being sold with Pakistan maps preloaded are quite expensive, compared with their devices being sold in the US. Devices start at $400 and map only for $120. Anyway, at least its a start for GPS, maps and location based services. Please share your experience for this new service.

In-car GPS navigation is not available in Pakistan. Data Solutions (Pvt) Ltd in partnership with Tracking World (Pvt) Ltd have launched Garmin GPS units loaded with Pakistan map data. Currently only Garmin GPS units are available for purchase. The units range from in-car dash mounted devices to devices for motorbikes. There is also a unit which can be integrated with the vehicle’s DVD/entertainment unit and displays the navigational information on it. Existing Garmin users also have the option to buy the map for their specific unit. You may view the maps and GPS devices at naqsha.net.

The map has street level detail of major Pakistani cities and all major national highways. Streets are labeled and searchable for Islamabad, Lahore and some parts of Karachi. In addition there are close to 40,000 POIs such as fuel/CNG stations, banks, atms, hospitals, restaurants (categorised), hotels, shops, etc. Most POIs have address and phone number information available as well. Units equipped with FM transmitters and Bluetooth allow hands free dialing from the unit and are able to integrate with the vehicles’s audio system as well.

More from Reuters.

China Mobile bought Pakistan’s Paktel Ltd for $400 million last year and has spent an additional $1.2 billion to expand its network, but has not yet begun to see returns on that investment, Wang said.

“We have a lot of risks, we have a lot of troubles,” Wang said, referring to his company’s investment in Paktel (Zong).

Wang said daily power shortages in major cities and high taxes kept the cost structure high in Pakistan, while revenue has not yet begun to reflect the investment.

“The ARPU for us is $12/month, but in our Pakistani company it is only $3/month,” said Wang, explaining the difference in average revenue per user, a key industry benchmark.

But in spite of the hurdles of emerging markets, Wang said China Mobile was not a financial investor and did not need to see a positive return in the short term.

“We are not a financial company, we are not private equity, we are a telecom operating company,” he said.

Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL), has reported net losses of PKR2.8 billion (USD325.99 million) for its financial year ended June 30. Dow Jones is reporting this, citing a statement to Karachi Stock Exchange by the operator. The losses are attributed to severance payoffs and the migration of customers to wireless services. Costs of the operator’s Voluntary Separation Scheme, which saw it lay off more than 33,000 employees, were reported to be approximately PKR23.9 billion, although the effects of the cull did see expenses decline 4% in the last quarter of the financial year to PKR44.7 billion.

Via Telegography