Posted by: Aamir Attaa on July 7, 2008 at 4:14 AM
Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission has announced that they have reached at point where they are ready to issue Broadband Wireless Access licenses in the country. Initial draft that has guidelines for the upcoming bidding and for WiMAX license details says that two nation wide licenses will be given away in 2.3Ghz band and one in the 2.5Ghz band.
Operators already operating in the country are banned from bidding - and the bidders are limited to having 60% foreign shareholding. Furthermore, the draft says that licensees will be allowed to rollout and operate network to provide nationwide Broadband Wiress services based on IEEE 802.16e (WiMAX) standards. The system can be point-to-multipoint or mesh radio systems consisting of BWA distribution hub stations and their associated subscriber stations (or BWA access devices). The last mile solution may be done in conjunction with WiFi, but that wholly depend on operators.
The good thing, which may be reconsidered after input from operators, is that it is said mandatory for all operators to share the same tower and existing infrastructure if available.
Dhabi Group and Orascom may seek its opportunities in Bangladesh’s emerging broadband market. Along with, we may see rise in equipment orders for Motorola and Huawei.
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Posted by: Aamir Attaa on July 3, 2008 at 11:57 PM
Few days back, Mr. Adnan Saeed, Project Manager, MoITT sent an email to a public forum, in which he put forward a message that read like below
Government of Pakistan has initiated a broad based consultative process to formulate National IT Policy for the next five years. In order to make a realistic and practical policy the Government intends to involve all the stakeholders in this consultative process.
Kindly send your comments to asaeed@moitt.gov.pk latest by 31st of July 2008. You can post your comments as well on virtual group at http://www.nidu.gov.pk/forum
Adnan Saeed
Project Manager (NIDU), MoITT
Ph: 9209269
asaeed@moitt.gov.pk
For Information
Syed Muhammad Anwer
Project Director
National IT Development & Promotion Unit(NIDU)
Director Legal, MoITT
Ph: 051-9218967, Fax: 051-9201012
Email: smanwer@moitt.gov.pk
So now you are not in any position to complain that the Ministry of IT and Telecom hasn’t asked the opinion of private sector while revamping IT policy. They did their job; now Gurus are requested to come forward with your feedback and let’s dictate the fate of Pakistan’s IT industry for at-least coming five years.
To read out current IT policy, please point your browsers to this document (National-IT-Policy-2000) Right Click and Select “Save Target As” - File Size: 1.05 MB
Call Centers, IT industry, investments, taxes on businesses, role of PTCL and broadband in the country are few of many elements which should be addresses in new IT Policy
Read it out, and have your say. I will also come up with another post in few days with suggestions from the people I know.
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Posted by: Aamir Attaa on July 2, 2008 at 9:16 PM
Chinese Company Huawei says that it has been selected by Mobilink, Pakistan’s largest GSM operator, to deploy a commercial WiMAX 16e network. Huawei will cover central Pakistan and hot spots in the country’s six major cities, including Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Sialkot, Faisalabad and Rawalpindi.
Under the terms of the contract, Huawei will provide Mobilink with a complete WiMAX solution including distributed base stations, an access service network-Gateway and a network management system.
No financial or rollout details were provided.
It merits Mentioning here that Mobilink is already in contract with Motorola and Alcatel-Lucent for its WiMAX network in Pakistan
[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 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 17, 2008 at 1:19 PM
Pakistan’s broadband market has been slothful despite the fact that broadband services have been made available since five years. Currently there are a total of approx 131,871 Broadband subscribers, which provide dismal picture when compared with other similar economies.
Cost of service (Tariff) has been the major reason behind this slow growth. However a major development for broadband market is the introduction of DSL services by the incumbent (PTCL) itself. PTCL has started offering its DSL services since June 2007 in various cities e.g Islamabad, Peshawar, Lahore and Karachi. PTCL offered low tariffs for home users with free installation service. This has affected tariffs offered by other DSL operators as they have also lowered DSL tariffs in order to remain competitive. According to PTCL sources, since they started of DSL service, 35,000 subscribers have subscribed to their Broadband. It is believed that such competition will lower the tariff and eventually will flourish the broadband market.
Coverage / Provision of broadband services is another factor as main emphasis of broadband operators have been to cover urban areas specially large cities, leaving a major part of population leaving in small cities, towns and villages forbidden of broadband services.
One can expect that PTCL having the largest data network will soon start offering DSL services in other cities and towns. WiMax Services will play a vital role in proliferation for broadband services to rural areas of the country in near future as the figure show that since introduction of first ever WiMax service
(December 2007) in Pakistan Wateen Telecom has captured 10000 subscribers in a short span of four months.
Apart from above Literacy Rate, Computer Penetration, Broadband Investment, QoS Level, Policy execution including the issues such as (Local Content Development, Countrywide Broadband Awareness Campaign and Provision of low Interest Loans for purchase of Computers) has also affect the development of broadband in the country, however It is expected that steps taken by PTA in collaboration with Industry players will ensure better and economical broadband services in Pakistan. Latest developments like reduction in tariff, steady rise in disposable income per capita, extensive infrastructure rollouts (especially fiber), introduction of triple-play services, rural tele-center project to educate rural population, Deployment of Fiber and WiMax Networks and growing bandwidth demands from businesses will help Broadband proliferation in urban as well as rural areas. It is estimated that there will be 0.5 Million Broadband subscribers in Pakistan by 2010.
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Posted by: Aamir Attaa on June 1, 2008 at 8:27 PM
Today, PTCL has offered its customers with two blessings, one is, free local call (only fixed line to fixed line) from 11:00 PM to 6:00 AM and other is Free Dialup internet for its broadband customers.. Previously PTCL had also offered free late night calls, which didn’t go for long. PTCL, as an SMP, offers all packages as limited time offer but it seems this time the late night package will prolong for a good time.
‘The Post’, citing Dr. Sadik Al-Jadir, SEVP (Commercial), has reported that this offer of seven free hours is to add value to company consumers. This long awaited free local call package would be appreciated amongst the masses.
On other hands, an advert in ‘Daily Express’ and in other print media, revealed that PTCL is going to offer Free, round the clock, dialup internet facility for its PTCL broad band customers.
The question is, “Why a broadband user will go for dialup internet? Even if it’s free… Many may disagree with me, but this offer is not going to give a good impression. Many ISPs, for instance, Micronet Broadband Limited offers its customers with free dial-up as backup, but advertising th
is free dialup feature through a quarter page advertisement didn’t make any sense to me. Thing that came in my mind, straight away, was that this free dialup internet is maybe due to ordinary quality of PTCL Broadband internet. I saw a news item in ‘The News’ published lately, that reported the rapid disconnections of PTCL Broadband users. Maybe, it is just an additional treat that could save some of their customers.
Another point that I focus is that PTCL is Significant Market Player (SMP), which is not supposed to offer packages without Pakistan Telecommunication Authority’s approval. PTA has defined here the Regulations for revising the tariffs for LL, LDI and WLL operators.
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Posted by: Aamir Attaa on May 17, 2008 at 6:59 AM
One of our fellows, M. Junaid Khan, recently discovered a job’s ad from Wi-Tribe in some newspaper.
Obviously, there is nothing exciting in that, however, the clue he got was of some importance for internet users in Pakistan.
Junaid Khan, predicts that Wi-Tribe is going to launch their WiMAX services very soon in Pakistan. It merits mentioning here that Wi-Tribe is jointly owned by Qatar Telecom, ATTCO group and Clearwire, and they are already operating WiMAX in Jordan. 
Wi-Tribe is one of fourteen LDI license holders in Pakistan, and they had been in a dispute with Telecard, reported here.
LinkDotNet is also intending to launch its WiMAX services in Pakistan, while they are in an agreement with Alcatel-Lucent for WiMAX deployment.
So there are some sign of competition for Wateen Telecom in coming days. Wateen say they have managed to grab 15,000 customers till now, and they hold 9 percent share in broadband market. Un-confirmed sources have reported that Wateen may start its DSL operations as well, to compete and survive in the tightening low priced market.
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