Mobilink Should Sell Unlocked Blackberry Handsets : CCP

Posted by: Aamir Attaa on August 6, 2008 at 3:45 AM

The Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) has asked PTA once again to direct Mobilink to sell unlocked Blackberry handsets compared to locked handsets which can’t be used on other networks.

In a statement issued by CCP, the commission has also warned Mobilink to stop practicing this activity along with a letter to PTA to get it implemented.

CCP, the successor of Monopoly Control Authority (MCA), passed the order on a show-cause notice issued by the MCA to Pakistan Mobile Communications Ltd (Mobilink GSM). The show-cause notice was issued in July 2007 under Section 11 of the MRTPO for carrying on unreasonable restrictive trade practices.

Mobilink that brought Blackberry services in Pakistan is not even subsidizing Blackberry Devices; (meaning that they are selling Blackberry devices at original price) even then they sell network locked handsets (which means Blackberry handsets sold by Mobilink can’t be used with Ufone or Warid’s network)

Mobilink Blackberry® Phone Prices: (All LOCKED)
Blackberry Pearl 8120 - PKR. 27,000/-
Blackberry Curve 8320 - PKR. 29,000/-
Blackberry Huron 8800 - PKR. 34,000/-
Blackberry Bold 9000 - PKR. 40,000/- to 45,000/- (Expected availability in September-October 2008 )

Warid Blackberry® Phone Prices: (All UNLOCKED)
Blackberry Pearl 8120 - PKR. 25,000/-
Blackberry Curve 8310 - PKR. 28,000/-
Blackberry Huron 8820 - PKR. 31,000/-

Ufone Blackberry® Phone Prices: (All UNLOCKED)
Blackberry 8700 - PKR. 18,000/-
Blackberry Pearl 8100 - PKR. 24,000/-
Blackberry Curve 8300 - PKR. 25,000/-
Blackberry Huron 8800 - PKR. 29,000/-

[Prices Via Mobile Pakistan Blog]

A review of these prices reveal that Mobilink’s prices for Blackberry handsets are actually higher than of Ufone and Warid, which are selling unlocked Blackberry handsets.

CCP has currently asked Mobilink to advertise the SIM lock features of their blackberry handsets, and educate their customers that they will not be able to use these devices with other networks. However, in my openion, they must stop selling locked handsets or they must subsidize Blackberry handsets.

It merits mentioning here that you can’t get Mobilink Blackberry services on devices that are not purchased from Mobilink.

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Nokia’s Push Email Service - Finally a Competition for Blackberry

Posted by: Aamir Attaa on August 5, 2008 at 11:26 PM

Last month, Nokia stopped supporting blackberry services on its handset, and the launch of Nokia E71 without blackberry was a clear indication from mobile phone manufacturer Giant Nokia to give competition to Blackberry.

Yes, Nokia has started offering Push Email services in a beta phase and that too at no cost, yes service is free but we don’t know how long it will remain free. Service named as “Nokia Email” is an application that offers native push emails to your Nokia devices.

Nokia email currently supports POP and IMAP email protocols.  MSN Hotmail and Corporate Mails are not yet supported. However, Nokia says that may arrive very soon once the beta testing is over. Currently supported devices include:  Nokia E51, E61, E61i, E65, E66, E71, E90, N73, N80, N81 8GB and N95.

How to use Nokia Email

To begin you must register on Nokia Email site. You will receive the application via download link to your mobile and application installation is very simple and smooth. Once the application is installed the set-up automatically begins.

Setting up the sync schedule is easy as well and of course since we want push we want it on at all times!  Remember though that data charges will apply as per your GPRS/EDGE plan.

The inbox speaks for itself.  The application also gives an option to create local folders which are stored on the device (but not synced with Gmail in this case). There are many other great features included in this application and we can expect even more in the final release.

For further reading and queries, check the FAQ’s to get your questions responded.

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Do You Play SMS?

Posted by: Aamir Attaa on August 4, 2008 at 6:23 AM

Posted by Nayni

It is a well-acknowledged fact that after invention of Internet another thing that brought revolution in people’s life is rapid growth of mobile industry. Inclusion of this new communication method not only brought change in social life of people but also left a deep impact on economical sector.

On Social front, people claim more intimacy with each other by using tips of their fingers that is almost cost free. An unwanted interference in life has been made so easy and cheap by SMS. The whole day you are bound to answer the greetings of both close one’s and of people who are trying to come close to you. You will feel as you have been closely monitored by bunch of people who will keep on investigating through SMS. How are you? Where are you? What are you doing? What were you doing? What will you do? How did you do that?  Where are you now? And so on…

Celebration of different days was not a new concept one decade before but the momentum that it has got now was never observed before. Thanks to cellular companies that have made people to realize the importance of at least 200 hundred days out of 365 days in a year. As you get up in the morning you find 8-10 messages of Happy ———– Day and then to remain “IN” you have to send the same message to ten more people and celebration of that day goes on… It seems as after some time people will also celebrate Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday : - ) By the way after 15 days I’m going to introduce “ Happy Result Day” for the students of intermediate
It is not only that you are being sent jokes through SMS but sometimes you find your “Fate “ closely knitted with your choice of forwarding a SMS to at least 10 more people. No need to do any struggle or go to any Aamil Baba, just obey the order given in the message and your wish will be granted.  Remember 10 means 10 otherwise luck can put her arms around some one else
On Economic front, SMS stands for Superb Money Service. Television Channels are getting benefit from this golden sparrow. Voting system on Reality Shows is the best way to make money through SMS. People send SMS in millions to stamp the success of their favorite candidate. News channels are now giving importance to the opinion of those people who send their views through SMS. Charges of these SMS are greater than normal charges. These Channels get 60 % share from that money while 40 % goes to the operators. So the opinions of people are really of great “Value”

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Position Holders of SSC Exams for Lahore, Gujranwala, Faisalabad and Sargodha Boards

Posted by: Aamir Attaa on August 4, 2008 at 5:08 AM

Contribution by Nayni

Lahore Board

1st Position :- Nauman Khadam        815
2nd              :-Muhammad Awais       813
3rd               :- Hafiz Furqan Malik    811
3rd               :- Hafiz Muhammad Saleem   811

Science Group ( Girls)

1st  Position :- Iffrah Rafaqat   809
2nd               :- Ezza Javaid       807
2nd               :- Anum Tanveer  807
3rd                :- Mariam Shahid 806
3rd                :- Hafsa sadeeq    806

Arts Group ( Boys)

1st Position:- Azeem Ullah 747
2nd              :- Muhammad Zohaib  743
3rd               :- Hafiz Shehzad Ali 735

Arts Group ( Girls)

1st Position:- Ayesha Nadeem 793
2nd              :- Sehrish Ghulam Rasool 787
3rd               :- Hafeez Qasim    785

Gujranwala Board

1st Position :- Muhammad Zeeshan  816
2nd              :- Fazeel Razzaq  812
3rd               :- Rabia Sajjad      811
3rd                :- Abdul Rehman  811
3rd                :- Waleed Shakeel  811

Science Group ( Girls)

1st Position :- Rabia Sajjad  811
2nd              :- Anum Afzal  810
3rd               :- Sidra Ramzan  808
3rd               :- Aqsa Ashraf 808
3rd               :- Rafia Kamran 808

Arts Group ( Boys)

1st Position :- Aman Ullah   765
2nd               :- Hafiz Ali  765
3rd               :- Muhammad Abu Bakar  748

Arts  Group ( Girls)

1st Position :- Irum Shehzadi  788
2nd               :- Ayesha  774
3rd               :- Arbab Shakeel  770
3rd               :- Hafiza Saba Qasim  770

Faisalabad Board

1st Position:- Muhammad Adil Afzal    817
2nd            :-Muhammad Arslan Ahsan   811
2nd             :- Arifa Kiran  811
3rd              :- Abdul Rahman Ibrahim  810

Science Group ( Girls)

1st position :- Arifa Kiran 811
2nd             :- Ramsha Shafiq 807
3rd             :- Ayesha Abrar 805

General Group ( Boys)

1st Position :- Rashid Hussain  757
2nd            :-  Muhammad Ijaz  733
3rd            :- Muhammad Abdullah 731
3rd            :- Muhammad Qasim   731

General Group ( Girls)

1st Position :- Maryum Iqbal  780
2nd            :-  Mehwish Javed   777
3rd            :-  Sehrish Saeed    774

Sargodha Board

1st Position :-  Zahoor Ahmed  810
1st            :-  Munaza Mushtaq  810
2nd             :-  Saba Anwar  809
3rd            :- Saadia Yasmin  808

Science Group ( Boys)
1st Position :-  Zahoor Ahmed  810
2nd             :-  Abdul Rehman 807
2nd             :- Shakaib Tahir  807
3rd             :- Muhammad Uzair Azeez Khan  806

Science Group ( Girls)

1st Position :-  Munazza Mushtaq 810
2nd             :-  Saba Anwar   809
3rd             :- Saadia Yasmeen 808

General Group ( Boys)

1st Position :-  Asad Mehboob 761
2nd             :-  Muneer hussain 740
2nd              :- Samee Ullah 740
3rd               :- Shamas ud Din 739

General Group ( Girls)

1st Position :-  Maryam Khan 765
2nd             :-  Madeeha Rashid 761
3rd               :- Farhana Kausar  758

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PTCL Must Withdraw Pakistan Package by August 31st 2008: PTA

Posted by: Aamir Attaa on August 1, 2008 at 12:39 PM

Pakistan Package by PTCL is going to see an end by August 31st, 2008. PTCL administration is obviously not in favor of this withdrawal; however PTA has directed the company to abolish the said package by the end of current month in order to maintain a pricing balance amongst market players. Directions came after an appeal by PTCL to the regulator that it wants to continue Pakistan Package was turned down by authority. PTA has directed the company to inform their customers by August 10th, 2008 about the removal of this Package.

Directives by PTA, dated July 30 2008 says that PTCL’s justifications to carry on Pakistan package are unreal for instance PTCL in its appeal said that Pakistan Package is selected by customers on voluntary basis however it was not the case; PTCL’s package was imposed forcefully for all customers of PTCL and majority of them showed strong resentment against this imposition. PTA said that it is still receiving complaints from general public regarding refund/adjustment and deactivation of Pakistan Package.

According to PTA only 25 percent of PTCL subscribers are availing Pakistan Package, majority of which are corporate clients with heavy traffic load. PTA has advised PTCL that this is actually in their own benefit to quit the package to maximize its revenues from those corporate clients.

In another justification PTCL said that Pakistan Package was facilitating its customers, in response to which PTA has responded that this fact is not true. Authority said that PTCL has lowered local call pulse rate from 5 to 3 minutes, along with the company is charging highest tariffs for fixed-to-mobile calls, which is defiantly not act of facilitation for customers.

PTA directive said that PTCL must publicize that it is quitting Pakistan Package before August 10th 2008 before taking it down from August 31st, 2008

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Nokia Secret Codes, Tricks and Tips

Posted by: Aamir Attaa on July 31, 2008 at 11:04 AM

There are lots of people in Pakistan who keep on switching their mobile phones and mostly they deal with used handsets. Following tips and tricks can be helpful to them while they are going to purchase a Nokia handset from their friend’s cousins or from some shop.

Note: All these codes may not work on all Nokia Handsets + Please use these secret codes carefully, as few operations are not reversible.

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Is NADRA capable of Verifying 90 Million SIMs?

Posted by: Aamir Attaa on July 29, 2008 at 11:22 PM

Latest stats given so far by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (as per end of July 2008) and those which are advertised through media campaigns by Cellular companies say that there are 90 million SIMs in the country.

We all know that NADRA is given the responsibility to verify each SIM of Pakistan, which in opinion of many telecom analysts is not capable of doing so.

Reasons:6

1. NADRA itself has only 60 millions of registered users in its database (As of July 2008)
2. Cellular SIMs’ sale started way before NADRA came into existence
3. First few years of NADRA were a total failure (because they have reached this 60 million registered ID card figure now, it was defiantly not so in earlier years) but SIMs were being sold even then

So there are two possibilities now

1. Situation 1: Either there are not more than 60 million customers in Pakistan (or even less, due to the fact that many of NADRA ID card holders, especially women and those in far flung areas don’t own mobile phones yet)
2. Situation 2: Or NADRA can not verify all SIMs

Okay, now we have reached 2 possible situation here, let’s discuss both in detail and what steps should be taken in case of both situations.

I am assuming that Cellular Companies and the regulator (PTA) are familiar with the actual situation, that is either we have only 60 million or less customers or NADRA can’t verify SIMS.

Situation 1: Pakistan has less than 60 million Customers

This is relatively a bad news for telecom sector of Pakistan, in terms of investment and the tempo that the industry has achieved. Let’s check out why Telcos keep on insisting that they have subscriber’s strength that they never bear

1. To increase their stock value
2. To Minimize ARPU, that’s called Average Revenue per User. (Higher ARPU is always welcomed, but in case of Pakistan, cellular companies have (maybe) tried to keep the ARPU low. It is like this, if you are earning lot of revenue but you show higher expenses (more subscribers, more operating expenses) to neutralize your revenues (low ARPU) and eventually escaping taxes
3. And not an important point, but it comes into consideration while keeping in view the performance of individual managers who kept their bosses (investors) happy

Resolution of Situation 1

In case, situation 1 is true, then Pakistan Telecommunication Authority must come into act and play positively so that Cellular companies are not able to steal taxes and help our economy grow, as this is the only sector that can make some big money for our country.

In case situation 1 is true then we may expect new figures in Telco ads such as Call Rs 1 per Minute to 18 million Mobilink friends and family numbers etc.

Situation 2: NADRA is not capable of verifying SIMs

In case, situation 2 is true, then we must not wait any more and we must come up with a better and immediate solution than of what we are practicing now. Stop the current process of SIM verification from NARDA and stop wasting time.

What option we are left if Situation 2 is true?

Alas we have not many options in order to tackle situation 2, but only one that is to re-register each single SIM. There should be given a deadline of like 6 or 9 months, during which each cellular subscriber will have to re-register his/her SIM before deadline. And remaining all numbers should be blocked after this ONE DEADLINE.

I am not kidding, this was done in Bangladesh and they have managed to re-register almost all of their cellular customers. This is even better options for cellular companies to reduce their verification cost (Cellular companies used to pay Rs. 20 earlier on and now Rs. 5 for verification of each SIM)

What if both Situations are true?

Then it’s the worst situation (and there are good possibilities of this) that we have got it, we may need to cater for each situation equally and separately

Conclusion

Most of the people (from PTA, cellular companies, financial experts, and Telecom analysts) I spoke with for the preparation of this report were well aware of the fact that the current mechanism for SIM verification is not going to work.

So who is going to prove that millions of SIMs (8 million that’s what Mr. Talha claims) were really blocked? or they are the only un-registered SIMs? I have spoken to CSRs of Mobilink, Ufone and Telenor and they say they never came across any customer who said that his/her SIM was blocked. So there are good chances that cellular companies blocked already inactive numbers. We all know that cellular companies have not provided the details of 5.4 blocked SIMs (which were blocked couple of months ago).

Dr. Yaseen, our newly appointed Chairman PTA should put more pressure on Telecom companies for more transprancy.

Whatever the case is, we must debug this issue now. As situation is still not out of our hands, and we must pay proper attention in order to leave hassle free environment to our coming generations.

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Dr. Yaseen, Chairman PTA’s Appointment Challenged Ethically

Posted by: Aamir Attaa on July 28, 2008 at 4:21 PM

Protected by President Musharraf, and duly extended tenure of Ex-Chairman Pakistan Telecommunication Autority (PTA) Maj. Gen (R) Shahzada Alam Malik at last reached to an end when he was shown the way to home by PPP government through premature termination of their contracts.

Following our national history and democratic culture, merit was assaulted yet another time in the bureaucratic front of Pakistan when Dr. Mohammed Yaseen overtook his senior colleague and member PTA Syed Nasurl Karim Ahmed Ghaznavi and became the chairman of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority.

As per Pakistan Telecommunication (Re-Organization) Act, 1996, Federal Government is responsible for the appointment of Chairman PTA. Government can select from Two Members of PTA board.

Dr Yaseen joined PTA board as member technical in October 2006 while Syed Nasurl Karim Ahmed Ghaznavi is a civil servant from 1974 batch, clearly getting a lead in terms of seniority.

Sources, familiar with the scenario, commented that this appointment can be termed as a true translation of Dr. Yaseen’s affiliation with PPP and his background from Sindh (though Dr. Yaseen was born in Gujranwala but moved to Sindh in his early childhood). Sources further unveiled that Dr. Yaseen joined PTA as 19th grade officer and was promoted to grade 21 in 2006 and now he is the head of a department in just 2 years, where as Mr. Ghaznavi was promoted to 21st grade in year 2001.

When contacted Federal Government, they responded with a justification that PTA is a technical department, hence requires more technical orientation and abilities instead of finance, so Dr. Yaseen was chosen unanimously by the committee.

Telecom analysts are opining other way; they firmly believe that Syed Nasurl Karim Ahmed Ghaznavi deserved this office as Chairmanship is not an engineering slot instead the head is responsible for regulate the telecom sector. Moreover, member technical is always there to look into technical matters if they ever arise. “Whatever the case is, there is no doubt that the supremacy of merit has been compromised” said a telecom analyst.

Mr. Ghazhnavi has been associated with telecom sector since 1992. Who can be a better regulator than him? Being an officer of Pakistan Audit and Account, which are trained in the art of regarding the public sector organization.

It is learned through reliable sources in PTA that authority is making massive changes in PTA in the name of “Reconstruction”, while remove senior and trained officers from their responsibilities and deputing less experiences and new people on a very delicate and important job slots.

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