Posted by: Aamir Attaa on November 3, 2008 at 5:35 AM
“Chinese will manage Pakistan’s market, and they will outplay everyone… They know how to get it”, I was told this by Mr. Frederic Rose, President then, Alcatel Shanghai Bell, Alcatel-Lucent’s flagship company in China. He was here in Islamabad to sign one billion dollars network expansion contract assigned to Alcatel-Lucent by China Mobile, which had recently acquired Paktel.
He replied me up given line when I had asked him that Pakistan’s market is already well saturated, how come a cellular company starting from scratch will be able to compete with Giants like Mobilink, Telenor, Ufone, Warid… given that, all these four companies bear very strong financial background, as well expertise of running GSM networks in multiple regions.
I am wondering now that how true Mr. Rose was. Yes, China Mobile has proven itself as a brand now, and it looks like they are going to give tough time to other cellular companies in coming days.
The hardest part for China Mobile was to rebuild the image that had been lost by Paktel; often we see, it’s easy to make a new building, than of restructuring a damaged one.
Launch
I was discussing this success of Zong with Babar Bhatti, who was kind enough to give me time before leaving for US tomorrow, and he rightly spotted that China Mobile didn’t rush in launching its brand. Zong took its full time in preparation and came up with a very powerful launch campaign, though we found that campaign as copied one, but until then it had left its impact on Pakistanis. Continue Reading This Story
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Posted by: Reality Bites on November 3, 2008 at 4:17 AM
It is estimated that almost 19000 cell sites have been installed by five mobile operators in different urban and rural areas of the Pakistan, in which Mobilink is on the top and Ufone fallowing on the same track with almost more than 4536 cell sites and others seems to be growing.
It is always observed that network coverage played important role for cellular operators to be a market leader with the help of value added services, as the network coverage remains the key element for increments in subscribers within months.
In this customer acquisition formula 1 race, where everyone is trying to compete each other with all tweaks and tricks they can play in grabbing customers from other operators and even attract new acquisitions to increase more revenues.
According to Ministry of Information Technology Mobile cellular policy, Telco operators are bound to roll out at least 70% network coverage of tehsil headquarters in four years with minimum 10% tehsils in all provinces. Most probably all cellular companies have attained this level in coverage roll out plan, but question is still remained unanswered, how quality of the network has been maintained so far?
Because voice distortion, call hangings, anonymous connectivity, call connection time, air interface blocking, call completion rate, call quality etc are still the same issues for customers faced in rural and urban areas. Continue Reading This Story
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Posted by: Reality Bites on November 1, 2008 at 12:28 AM
Telenor, the Norwegian trans-national telecom giant, entered Pakistani market in March 2005. Within just three years, Telenor have acquired 18.4 million subscribers (as of September 2008), becoming the third largest mobile operator in Pakistan, an outstanding feat given the country’ s fierce competitive environment.
Despite this growth, Telenor Pakistan network congestion issues are known to Telenor customers. They include different issues like, voice distortion, anonymous voices with connected call etc.
These issues were because of :
- More than ten traditional HLRs were in the current network, with some having a capacity of as low as 1 million. This arrangement caused a range of problems in network management and maintenance:
- Networking was highly complex due to the large number of low-capacity HLRs. The customer service system needed to connect to, and adapt to, all the HLRs on the network, and the resulting complexity significantly raised maintenance costs. Continue Reading This Story
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Posted by: Reality Bites on November 1, 2008 at 12:14 AM
M-Commerce is exchange of products & services and to make e-transaction with the help of mobile phones. It came in to existence, especially after 2000 and when CMTO’s applied for licenses to give customer handy services at instant.
In Pakistan, mobile phones are mostly used for voice calling and data services like SMS but in recent years the value added services have become integral part of Telco’s revenues like CRBT (color ring back tone) and others. Most of CMTO’s are earning sky-scraping ARPU (Average Revenue per User) because of these value added service. But we cannot deny the fact that ARPU based services are the major challenge for Telco’s to maintain brand equity and ARPU’s on the consistent pace.
Common M-Commerce services are:
- Mobile Ticketing
- Mobile Vouchers
- Coupons
- Balance Sharing
- Loyalty SMS Cards
- Content Service Purchasing
- Location Based Services (LBS)
- Information Services Continue Reading This Story
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Posted by: Aamir Attaa on October 31, 2008 at 6:00 AM
There comes positive news from PTCL’s end that it has managed to increase its revenues by 8 percent and net profit by 6 percent during the first quarter of current fiscal year.
Waleed Arshad, President of PTCL, had a special press briefing last day, where he announced that in first quarter of the current fiscal 2008-09, total revenue of PTCL remained Rs 16.6 billion which increased by 8 percent as compared to corresponding period of last year.
Similarly total net profit of PTCL almost touching an increase of Rs 3.2 billion which is increased by 6 percent.
There came another killing news for ISPs that PTCL’s free internet service at night will remain applicable for unlimited period of time. While Green White recently reported that Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has decided to examine the validity of PTCL’s free dial-up service. Report said that PTA Chairman directed this on complaint of ISPs.
On other hands, Mr. Waleed Arshad said that PTCL’s free internet is not regularized while PTA was informed in advance.
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Posted by: Bites85 on October 30, 2008 at 5:59 AM
Internet is full of web hosting companies like Media Template, Dream Host, GoDaddy and thousands pf others. Web masters prefer web hosting companies which are reliable and trusted. These big companies have elite administration with a lot of experience. They provide very good back up, if encountered any problem. Even Pakistani web masters and users prefer these foreign companies for multiple reasons. But many people may not know that even Pakistan has good web hosting providers. Today i will tell you about few good web hosting providers:
Creative On:
It is a very reputable company. There basic packages for the beginners are very competitive and can be dubbed as the best. They also have reseller hosting services which are very affordable. They provide Windows and Linux dedicated hosting with very good features. It can be called Pakistan’s best web hosting providers. Professional web masters should consider this. They also have an affiliate program through which you can earn up to Rs.4000.
Continue Reading This Story
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Posted by: Muhammad Ali Raza on October 30, 2008 at 5:49 AM
It’s so natural to love free things…! But, it’s unnatural to get quality products for free, especially software. as people says “Free main tu bukkhar bhi nahi milta”. Though Pakistan is heavily crowded by pirated software, but we all know its not legal, and must be stopped.
So, for those who want free legal software, and that too of immense quality, let’s get familiar with OPEN SOURCE applications. But in case you can pay money to buy licensed software, you can skip this post, as you may get hurt in the end.
Let’s take Microsoft Office as an example, which costs you plenty of dollars to get registered. Also, its EXE files are not editable. Normal computer users are not concerned if EXE files are editable or not, but what if you are a programmer and want to change the layout of your Microsoft Word and its colors? Or let’s say you want to add a feature to Microsoft excel; Can you do them yourself? Answer is big NO. The reason is that its code is not editable.
However, this is not the case with open source. Let review following definitions to better understand what exactly is open source software?
“Open source application is a computer program in which the source code is available to the general public for use and/or modification from its original design free of charge.”
Another good definition is that “Open source software is a licensing model for software which gives free access to the source code of the software to allow interested parties to modify or contribute to the software as they see fit. Commonly created as collaborative projects and shared at no cost.”
You must be wondering why I am telling you all this. The reason is very simple. Most of us are copying software valuing thousands of dollars without any fear. There is no harm in it, as no one is going to catch you - but this is ethically wrong. So why to indulge ourselves into criminal activity, when there are alternates available? In fact lot better alternates.
And let me tell you something, there is open source software available for each and everything. Yea, these open source applications are being used in kids’ remote control to cars to Boeing 747 cockpit. In ps3 to Nintendo DS, mobile phones to desktops servers. (By the way ProPakistani.com is also on a linux Ubuntu server, which is lot more secure and efficient than of our previous Windows 2003 server)
To further tell you about open source applications available, let me quote Distrowatch Database (they keep record of open source application distribution etc)
DistroWatch database summary
- Number of all distributions in the database: 582
- Number of all active distributions in the database: 327
- Number of discontinued distributions: 183
- Number of distributions on the waiting list: 168
Now let’s talk about Desktops - In Pakistan people fear from using Linux because they think its old type of thing and hard black screen and all things run from there.
My friends, things have changed! Linux now a day is more users’ friendly then of Microsoft Windows. Linux is bug free comes with free support, as well as it is customizable.
Good thing is that there are tons of Linux versions (they call it distributions), such as if you are a network administrator you can chose those distributions which are good for administration tasks, if you are musician, we have just best thing for you also. In case you are a geek we have another special build distribution for you - for students in school and colleges we have treat for you people also.
In latter posts of this series, we will talk more about Linux, especially Linux UBUNTU, which made its place in people hearts in very short time.
So stay tuned for more information.
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Posted by: Aamir Attaa on October 27, 2008 at 2:42 AM
We had covered this Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) market review few months ago, however, changes take place in days now. As the energy crisis continue in Pakistan, in fact it has gone worse, people are again rushing towards UPS markets to get themselves electricity backups.
Thanks to winter, general people may not require UPS units as they did in hot summer, but businesses, students, and those who want to remain in tact with their electrical devices are in crucial situation due to unannounced and long run power failures.
Okay, I am covering only UPS market review, hopefully I will bring forward Generators’ market review as well in coming days, but lets focus on options and prices for UPS units in this article.
We saw two very significant things, one that UPS market is undergoing tremendous rush, and same is the case with prices. By the way, these prices went down in month of Ramadan (as there were no power outages then), but once again UPS businesses have gone high.
We noted that average cost of a Rs. 10,000 UPS has increased by almost 30 percent when compared to prices in May-June 2008. Retailers say this increment is due to the fact that manufacturers have increased prices of raw material on pretext of higher production cost due to higher imports of accessories.
A survey of retailers unveiled that UPS with a capacity of running two fans and two lights is hot item, and its sale has gone as high as 30 percent. It merits mentioning that this is least powered UPS available in the market, and is mostly used by small to mid sized shopkeepers and home users.
It merits mentioning here that there are two types of UPS available, imported ones and locally assembled. Retailers said that buyers prefer locally made UPS units for two reasons. 1 – They are inexpensive, 2 – Imported UPS units come with no warranty, hence more risk for buyers.
As the demand is increasing, there are more people getting involved in making of these local made UPS units. This retailer named, Hafiz Imran confirmed that there are tens of UPS manufacturing plants working in Rawalpindi. By the way, Daily Time lately reported that there are around 45 manufacturing units of UPS are working in the different parts of the Karachi only as cottage industry. The wholesalers have doubled their orders in order to meet the growing demand.
It was also reported that there comes lots bugs and after sale complains due to ordinary quality and unqualified technicians who make these UPS units in lesser time.
With UPS units, there come batteries, which are used with UPS units to keep your electrical devices alive – and scenario is not different of batteries as well, as prices have gone high here too.
So this is what the market has been undergoing, now check out these tips that you must consider before buying a UPS
Things to consider for Buying a UPS
- Try to put minimum load on UPS, that is don’t try to put all electrical devices on your UPS, instead make sure that only power critical devices are on UPS
- Once you have decided what items you will be running on UPS, calculate their power load. For this, don’t rely on UPS shops, instead ask for electrician in your colony and let him calculate the power load that you will be running on UPS. For instance, a computer with 17 inch monitor is likely to require 400 to 450 watts. Similarly, calculate your entire load and make sure what power do you require from this UPS.
- Go into main electrical markets of your city, instead of your corner electrical shop. Check around in couple of shops for the rates for the power your need. Let’s assume you need a UPS of 1000 Watts, then ask around what quotes you get.
- Please note that there are NO OFFICIAL RATES, so you will have to do little research to save you couple of thousand Rupees
- Please make sure that battery is nothing to do with your UPS. Your batteries will be responsible for backup time. So if you purchase a low ampere battery, it will give you lesser time and vice versa.
- Once your UPS is ready, make sure that it is giving output of exactly what you had asked for. For this purpose you can keep along your cousin or friend who knows a little about electrical meters, ask retailer (shopkeeper) to verify that this UPS is giving out proper voltages.
- If you are planning to use computer with this UPS, make sure that UPS unit supports it. For this direct the shopkeeper to make it computer complaint. (They make little configuration changes in your UPS, which prevents your Computer rebooting when electricity goes down.
Prices for UPS Units with Built in Dry Batteries
These UPS units come with built in Dry Batteries, and stabilizers. Means you get a once pack solution and simply take it home. But make sure that back-up duration for Buil in Dry Batteries’ UPS units is between 10 to 15 minutes only - Meaning that these are mainly for computers and for just saving your files and allowing you enough time to shut down your computer. (In case you need more backup time, then check for below given UPS prices that come without Batteries – and you can add up batteries to get more back up time)
Continue Reading This Story
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