Posted by: Reality Bites on November 14, 2008 at 9:15 AM
Mobile broadband has become hot topic these days, especially with the launch of World Call EVDO in Karachi and expected launch of PTCL EVDO next month. It just seems like that EVDO is going to be the next burning business in the country. Though, WorldCall has somewhat failed to give an early impression, and also their absence in Lahore/Islamabad (Though they have plans to roll out EVDO in Lahore next month), but future seems promising. By the way, one of TGP discussion revealed that they are registering 25 new customers each day in Karachi. Continue Reading This Story
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Posted by: Aamir Attaa on November 11, 2008 at 8:29 PM
We know through our sources and a service glimpse given on PTCL’s website, that PTCL is planning to launch long awaited CDMA based wireless broadband in Pakistan from December 1st, 2008. Initially, service will be offered in Karachi, Islamabad/Rawalpindi and Lahore.
From early information provided, we can assume that a plug and play USB compatible device will be provided to customers, to get this always on Mobile Broadband.
After DSL and WiMAX I suppose such mobile broadband is something that Pakistan’s consumers are looking for. However, the pricing is going to play a major role in making such gadgets and services hot. However, it is anticipated that pricing will be quite high than of wired broadband - But we can expect anything from PTCL… Continue Reading This Story
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Posted by: Aamir Attaa on November 8, 2008 at 12:54 AM
Ufone in collaboration with Huwaei launched its first Cell Site powered with Solar system. we must not forget that Warid was first to roll out it’s first solar site in Pakistan.
The site is situated in Tehsil Haroonabad , BhawalNagar. chosen of these cities might have some interest to their weather conditions as well.
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Posted by: Reality Bites on November 6, 2008 at 3:56 AM
“After weapons’ manufacturing industry, ‘Telco Industry’ is the world largest domain, said a renowned Telecom analyst of Asia, and in deed Telco industry has been playing major role in market & benefiting consumers in day to day operations.
Call : Mom , lecture ended please pick me up from university, ok son , I will pick you up …
SMS: So do you agree? - yes , then Deal Done! …
SMS: thank you I have made the payment.
Call: What happened? Its accident, ok let me call 15 or 1122 to inform them about the injuries and losses & this list goes on….! Continue Reading This Story
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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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