State of Telecom Industry in Pakistan

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on Friday announced the launch of a mechanism to redress consumer grievances, especially spam cellphone text messages, in a broader and more focused manner.

PTA Chairman Dr Mohammad Yaseen made the announcement in a press conference and stressed that telecom services should meet the quality benchmarks to achieve maximum consumer satisfaction.

The authority had been working closely with the operators to improve service quality issues faced by their subscribers, the chairman said, adding that ‘detailed analysis had been carried out at the regulators end in line with the findings and complaints received against the operators by subscribers.

‘Establishing an effective system for prompt solutions to grievances was imperative,’ Mr Yaseen said.

The regulator had directed operators to develop comprehensive complaint handling mechanisms and to redress consumer grievances in line with the Consumer Protection Regulations 2009.

In the implementation phase, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority and the operators had now revamped their complaint handling systems, made them more consumer oriented, organised, expanded and provided a range of modes including helplines, emails and fax numbers through which consumers could lodge their complaints.

The PTA chairman said the authority was also looking into the issue of spam messages that were causing inconvenience to subscribers.

[via DAWN.COM]

I found this hilarious message at Karachi Metroblog. The spelling mistakes are included for free to  entertainment you. Don’t forget to send the NIC with your phone if you want the millions promised below. LOL – this guy sends spam via sms and asks you to mail all the info!

BTW I do get plenty of spam on the blog (comes with the territory I guess) and on my gmail inbox. It is annoying to get these spam messages but once in a while a message becomes a source of amusement.

Messages Minus the Mess! While PTA tries to figure out what to do with all the unwanted SMS psam, here’s Mobilink’s solution to SMS spam. Readers, please let me know if you have used it, if its good or is it just not worth trying?

Say good bye to annoying and fraudulent SMS as a thing of the past! Welcome to the new world!

Mobilink has always been the first to bring the best and most innovative services for our valued customers. Keeping in line with our main focus on customer convenience as a socially responsible organization Mobilink introduces Anti-Spam SMS Filter for the first time in Pakistan to protect our valued customers from fraudulent spam messages. This solution will cover all inter-operator promotional and spoof messages and will be provided to the entire customer base for free!

How will the Filter Work?
The anti-spam filter will act like a firewall, which will prevent intrusive SMS from reaching our valuable customers. Once the engine detects any spam message from any other network it will be blocked there and then.

SMS is all about fun and Mobilink makes sure that it stays that way. So enjoy SMS like you should because only Mobilink looks out for you!

On the way to work today I heard a report from NPR about email overload. I wanted to share the story with all and ask you:

• do you consider your email volume to be excessive?
• do you use any special tools (other than filters) to manage email?

In my case I have multiple email accounts (work, web-based, ISP, blog, others). With hundreds of emails coming each day it is a challenge to sift out the useful and relevant messages from trivia, promotions and spam. At work, I find the back and forth short messages to be most annoying, esp when there is a large distribution list in CC. For personal emails, the forwarded chain letters, powerpoint slide shows and hoaxes are a nuisance – and many times they come from your family and friends. On the other hand its a pain when a useful mail ends up in spam.

IM and presence indicators (such as those in outlook or yahoo) are useful to cut down on some email load. SMS is another option but its cost could be a factor in some places. Blackberry comes to the rescue but it is not a common tool. A co-worker uses outlook client with yahoo filters as a catch-all. Main reason — yahoo spam filters works so well. Here’s a new development from Yahoo:

Yahoo, one of the biggest providers of Web-based mail, is trying to rethink its e-mail as a social network, according to John Kremer, vice president of Yahoo Mail. The idea is that since most of us e-mail only a handful of people regularly, e-mail systems should display those messages at the top of the inbox.

Most recently the so-called social networks are adding to the junk mail because people who you have never even heard want to be your friend. One person I know refuses to sign up for LinkedIn because he is afraid that people will get offended if he refuses their connection request!

The NPR story has an interesting anecdote about how “auto-fill” created a multi-million dollar problem for a fortune 100 company. I have myself been in the situation where outlook auto-filled the wrong email (yahoo instead of work) and I got in trouble later.

I believe that the good old phone call is still a great way to get things done. May be as a follow-up to that email you just sent or as a heads up that an important message is on its way soon!