Posted by: Aamir Attaa on July 1, 2008 at 3:33 PM
Data Services on wireless (GSM) devices have started getting response from Pakistani consumers. Text Messages (SMSes) in particular have experienced tremendous growth in the recent months; when we look at number of text messages exchanged by Pakistani cellular users, it is clearly indicating the growth rate hitting as high as 30 percent mark.
PTA’s recent quarterly report says that Pakistanis, on average, exchanged 68.51 Million text messages per day during January-March 2008; that’s something very mind-blowing with 85 million users in the country, but our history says that we have never sent/received this much text messages before.
When we peek into reasons for this growth, one can easily term SMS Packages (that offer very low priced Unlimited SMS on any network) the sole responsible for it. However, other things that supported this growth may also include the political situation of the country, which evolved the idea of SMS based political campaigns during and after elections. Not only this, we saw SMS coming into play after November 3, 2007, during imposition of Emergency in Pakistan for exchanging news and ideas, while the electronic media was capped by the Musharraf Government then.
Increased awareness in Pakistani telco users can also be seen as a factor that boosted the usage of SMS. Using mobile phones for last few years, now we are getting familiar with mobile devices and their functionality. Now most of us can at least read/understand a text message. Cellular operators can further make the process easy by introducing (English to Urdu) translation services for SMS messages. Qtel has successfully launched such a service for its subscribers in Qatar.
Along with SMS, GPRS backed internet on cellular phone is also getting momentum. Specifically, the unlimited GPRS and hourly based internet packages by Zong are causing more customers to get them equipped with internet while on the go.
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In this given scenario, we may expect acceptance of 3G services in Pakistan, given that prices are kept affordable. It must be noted that in developed countries text messages are loosing popularity when compared to email and IM.
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Posted by: Aamir Attaa on June 27, 2008 at 10:18 AM
Gone are the days when we are limited to only .com .net and few other top level domains, now get ready for almost infinite variety of Web addresses ending in words like .islamaba, .Lahore, example.zardari etc.
This news is hot that The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, that actually controls the top level domains, has permitted the introduction of Internet addresses with uncountable new endings in place of the familiar .com and .net suffixes, making the most sweeping changes in the internet’s 25-year-old addressing system.
New web address system will also ease the way for the introduction of a .xxx domain name for pornographic sites. Backers of .xxx have lobbied the ICANN board without success for years.
During this change ICANN also voted to open public comment on allowing addresses to be written in non-English characters, such as Urdu and other Asian and Arabic languages, as well as Cyrillic characters.
However, we know nothing about what exactly it would cost to win the rights to one of the new suffixes. New York Times estimates range from $10,000 to $250,000. We know that this fee is collected to cover the cost of setting up the system.
Under the new guidelines, any string of letters would be eligible for consideration for web address suffix but subject to an independent arbitration process to evaluate objections to proposed labels that could be rebuffed on the grounds of “morality or public order.
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Posted by: Aamir Attaa on June 25, 2008 at 7:40 AM
Communications market research firm Infonetics Research has said in one of its recent reports that the worldwide WiMAX equipment market, including fixed and mobile WiMAX equipment, increased 59% sequentially to $363 million in 1Q08.
Infonetics’ report has mentioned that Mobile WiMAX (802.16e) equipment saw a significant hike in sales which jumped 141 percent in first quarter 2008, while overtaking the revenues from Fixed WiMAX (802.16d) equipment for the first time.
This increment in Mobile WiMAX equipment sale was result of number of new network rollouts, while existing networks continued to scale up during first quarter of the current year.
“We expect healthy growth for the evolving mobile WiMAX market, which is seeing strong adoption not only from Tier 2 and 3 carriers, but from Tier 1 nationwide operators as well, like Sprint-Clearwire in the US, SK Telecom and KT in South Korea, Wateen in Pakistan, BSNL in India, and Vodafone and Orange in new territories,” said Richard Webb, wireless analyst for Infonetics Research.
Other highlights from the report:
- Motorola takes the lead in overall WiMAX revenues in 2008 after increasing its worldwide mobile revenue share by 10 points, and is the first vendor to exceed $50 million in mobile WiMAX revenue in a single quarter, according to Infonetics’ estimates
- Alvarion continues to lead in worldwide fixed WiMAX equipment revenue share, but is getting a run for its money by Telsima, which increased its revenue in 1Q08
- The nascent mobile WiMAX phone and Ultra Mobile PC segments showed early traction, together increasing 171% sequentially in 1Q08; these devices have appealing, non-traditional form factors and capabilities and will play a major role in attracting new subscribers to mobile WiMAX networks
- The number of fixed and mobile WiMAX subscribers topped 2 million worldwide in 2007 and is expected to triple by the end of 2008
[Via Cellular News]
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Posted by: Aamir Attaa on June 24, 2008 at 12:42 PM
After Wateen getting mixed response from market, Mobilink is set ready for the soft launch of its WiMAX operations in the country. WiredPakistan has reported in an un-official discussion that Mobilink is going to start offering WiMAX services in Karachi in coming few days.
Through a friend, the poster learnt that Mobilink is all ready to start offering the beta services for test purpose, mainly to corporate clients, however, few of home users may also enjoy cutting edge WiMAX technology jointly deployed by Alcatel-Lucent and Mototola. This off the record conversation revealed that we should not expect much from Mobilink’s WiMAX, as the investor (Orascom, the parent company of Mobilink) does not see returns on investments (ROI) in Pakistani markets, hence not very generously investing in the country. The poster claims that his resource has confirmed quality and blanket coverage of Mobilink WiMAX in cities like Karachi, compared to poor coverage by Wateen. (I personally back this, as there are many locations, including Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Lahore etc. where you don’t get WiMAX signals)
However, there was another poster who claimed that Mobilink had already launched its test services for their employees in Islamabad. We don’t know how long this test transmission will run, but Mobilink may get advantage of proven technology of Alcatel-Lucent. Based on the latest IEEE 802.16e-2005 standards (also called Rev-e), the Mobilink’s WiMAX network is deployed in the 3.5GHz spectrum.
Obviously, we know nothing about pricing details, but one can expect that Mobilink is going to give extremely tough time to Wateen, just like they did with LinkDotNet.
Any additional information/correction is welcomed in comments
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Posted by: Aamir Attaa on June 20, 2008 at 4:06 PM
We have seen a real fight amongst cellular companies in Pakistan, specifically after the emergence of Zong (CMPak), with so many new packages and innovations that are actually benefiting the end users.
Zong, as expected has started doing the wonders, first they introduced unlimited GPRS in only PKR 400 per month, and now this hourly offer is going to redesign the industry the way we use internet on our mobile phones through GPRS.
So, now 15 Rs per MB internet thing is gone, as Zong has come up with another mind blowing offer with what you can use internet for one hour for only Rs. 15 without worrying of the download/upload limit.
And the good thing is that you will be charged on per minute basis, and the rate is Rs. 0.25 per minute (Excluding taxes); that is, if you use internet for 10 minutes, you will be charged Rs. 2.50 (excluding taxes) Incredible.
How to Subscribe
For activating the package, just dial 905 from your ZONG connection and get connected!
Charges
Rs. 15/hour+tax
Charging Unit
Rs. 0.25/min+tax
I am not sure about the quality, but I have heard its good enough. So now start enjoying your wireless internet means and that too at very inexpensive rates.
Challenge for other telcos…let’s see what they have in their minds?
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Posted by: Aamir Attaa on June 19, 2008 at 9:38 PM
We have seen much boom in internet broadband market in Pakistan; situation is much better than the recent years. Now we can have 1 MB link in less than Rs. 2,000 which was as high as Rs. 60,000 just couple of years ago; thanks to LinkDotNet and PTCL.
However, we are still required to compete hard when it comes to the customer services and number of broadband customers in the country, which are merely one hundred and thirty thousands. And I believe, customer services become vital to increase the strength. We have got huge number of heads in our country, now exceeding 160 million mark, so if service is offered in good manners, no doubt that inhabitants will love to acquire it.
When compared with India, situation is quite satisfactory as we are not lacking far behind. Broadband in India is still capped with download limit contrary to a free hand given to customers here in Pakistan. This particular package named as BSNL 500 Combo offers 215 Kbps speed in 500 Indian Rupees, however, you have liberty of un-metered download only at night; in addition BSNL also offer no line rent and 175 free local calls with the bundle.
Pakistan Government should now look forward at strategies to offer free internet to some selected segment. Obviously it would be nothing less than day dreaming if we think of free internet for everyone, but school and universities should get this free internet treat at least. We know that Bangladesh has offered free broadband internet for more than 40,000 state-run primary schools. Not only this, you can get broadband internet in Bangladesh at 25 percent of rack rates if you are a school, even the private one.
India also announced last year they are going to offer free 2 MB internet broadband link to every citizen by year 2009. Okay, don’t do that “Free for All” in Pakistan, but we may start with our schools, universities, libraries etc….to at-least kick things going.
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Posted by: Aamir Attaa on June 19, 2008 at 1:50 PM
We saw that the download counter was turning real slow in the start, which didn’t rolled 5/6 downloads per second, however, the latter on in the day the counter was well geared sending more than 1000 downloads per second (personal observation)
Official release says that Firefox 3 browser was downloaded 8.3 million times thus Mozilla beat its goal of 5 million downloads by 3 million and set a new world record, massive one day download….
Mozilla’s servers sent out 83 terabytes of data during these 24 hours, and at the peak there were 17,000 downloads per second (with an average of 4,000 per second). The browser was downloaded in 200 different countries, with the top ten being
- U.S.
- Germany
- Japan
- Spain
- UK
- France
- Iran
- Italy
- Canada
- Poland
Snapshot of counter, which is currently offline and not displaying any stats (Snapshot taken from MozilaLinks)
So the Iranians loved Firefox, i was wondering where is India or China in this list?
We also saw some server crashes during the while, obviously, not a big deal when this much of data was being coming out from the servers.
Firefox 3, as a browser seems nice, smart, lightweight, quite quick and with less bugs. However, few extensions may not work in early days.
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Posted by: Aamir Attaa on June 19, 2008 at 11:43 AM
Geo News is airing repetitive message that the TV Channel is going to shift broadcasting its transmission from Dubai to Pakistan. We don’t know much about what actually is going around. Updates are expected soon; however, there is nothing being on-aired on TV except this message.
Earlier on, Geo Television had said that Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf is behind a move by the United Arab Emirates government to stop its transmission.
Geo TV said it had received a notification from the Dubai administration which had asked the TV channel to stop airing two popular current affairs talk shows or else close down. Geo News was previously headquartered in Dubai and has had a troubled relationship with the government there since the 2007 Emergency in Pakistan. Geo in its news had reported that it may start airing the transmission from Hong Kong or UK.
Also the transmission satellites are being changed; new satellite specs are as following
Satellite AsisSat S3
D/L Polarity: Vertical
Symbol Rate: 26666
D/L Frequency: 4180 Mhz
Modulation: QPSK
FEC: 3/4
We know that Geo TV also offers its webcast at Geo.tv
So, if you are receiving Geo News directly from satellite, through Dish Antenna, change the directions as mentioned to receive signals
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