Free Line Rent for 1 month Against 3 Month’s Rental in Advance - Warid

Posted by: Aamir Attaa on November 1, 2008 at 11:00 AM

1-2-3 Free offer is for all new and existing Postpaid customers – either they are individual customers or the corporate ones.

How to avail this offer?

• Visit your nearest business center
• Fill in the consent form
• Deposit 3 months line rental in advance as per your current or new upgraded package plan
• You are all set to enjoy the benefits offered by this offer
• In case of Corporate customers, contact your Corporate Account Manager to benefit from this offer.
• This offer is available only at Warid Business Centers

Clearly the race for customers’ retention is on. But there is another trick that Warid wants to play with their customers who are with old packages. It may be recalled that Warid had revised their postpaid packages and had increased monthly rental on all packages.

Now this 1-2-3- Free incentive is available for only new tariff plans, meaning that if you have old package, then you will have to upgrade it in order to avail the offer. I doubt if any customer will like to get one month’s free line rent and in return will pay more line rent every month.

On other hands, those customers who are running on upgraded tariff plans, may easily consider this offer.

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Mobile Commerce & Pakistani Telco Industry

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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Free Handsets with 2 Year Contract for Ufone + HBL Credit Card Holders

Posted by: Aamir Attaa on October 28, 2008 at 6:25 AM

Ufone has partnered with Habib Bank Limited to offer post paid connections to HBL credit card holders with special rates plus free handsets. Rates are not that special in fact, as line rent is kept high, but calling rates may beat every other cellular package by Ufone itself and othre companies too.

Idea of giving out free handset with mobile connections was tried by Ufone itself and other cellular companies too, but that was for low end market with subsdized handsets. However, in this case, they are offering high end handsets like Nokia N78, Blackberry Curve 8320 and 8310 too.

As i mentioned earlier, line rent is kept high for all four packages available - meaning that you will be charged on monthly basis, and for minimum of two years. Yes, you will have to sign a 2 year contract in order to get this package and free handset.

Also note that there are around 20 models of mobile phones available for different packages. But first let’s look at tariff

Package Plans (All Rates are for 30 Second pulse)

Note: Package information displayed on Ufone’s website is incorrect as free minutes are called Free SMS there. But i have counter checked this and made sure that all packages come with Free Minutes. By the way, i have informed their helpline about this typo. Also, Ufone didn’t mention that these rates are for 30 seconds pulse.

Clearly, both on-net and off-net calls are offered at good rates. Also number of free minutes and SMS, somehow justify line rent.

What Handset options are available?

You are given with couple of options for handsets, depending on package you choose.

Package 1: Nokia 1680, Nokia 2630, Samsung M150
Package 2: Samsung M620, Samsung E251, Sony Ericsson R300, Sony Ericsson T303
Package 3: Nokia 6300, Nokia 3500 (C), Nokia N72, Sony Ericsson W350
Package 4: Nokia 5310, Nokia 5610, Nokia N70 ME, Sony Ericsson K770
Package 5: Nokia N78 - 2 GB, Nokia N - 81 8 GB, BlackBerry ® CurveTM 8320,
BlackBerry ® CurveTM 8310

Offer seems attractive… isn’t it? Okay there is a good news too if you are already a Ufone customer, and that you can associate your in-use Ufone number with your HBL Credit Card and can switch over to these packages. Along with you will be qualified to get free handset too ; -)

Let’s see if such offers with free handsets come for regular customers too - apparently, this could be done only with Banks as they have a comparatively reliable system for tracking customers’ in case of non-payments.

Terms and Conditions

• All current and new HBL CreditCard Holders are eligible for this offer.
• All current and new Ufone Postpay customers can avail this offer by applying for HBL CreditCard.
• Customers are required to sign an undertaking.
• Accordingly customer’s monthly charges will appear automatically on the HBL Creditard statement.
• HBL and the customer will be required to adhere to the terms and conditions of the contract for a two-year period for any one of the 5 plans applied for by the customer.
• HBL reserves the right to refuse any application.
• Handset models are subject to change based on their availability. In case the selected handset is not available, customers can choose from the same package.
• Handsets will be delivered within 15 days of application approval.
  Customers can call HBL PhoneBanking at 111-111-425 for further information.

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24 Hours Free Call for 1 Zong to Zong Number

Posted by: Aamir Attaa on October 25, 2008 at 7:19 AM

Yea, that’s true… you can call one Zong number unlimited calls 24×7 - but there is monthly rental of Rs. 500 plus tax. Despite the monthly subscription fee, this offer gonna rock.

Now there is a clear reason for the success of Zong… that it offers a package for each segment of users. If you are SMS addict, there is an option, incase you love GPRS, there is per hour Internet offer; you name your requirment and Zong has its solution for you. Though other companies are following the same lines, but Sales’ stats say Zong is outperforming them.

Getting back to this particular offer, 24 Hours free call at 1 Zong Number is available for “Zong Free Package” (This is name of the package). If you are not on Zong Free Package, then check below the process of converting your number to Zong Free Package

How to convert Package

Its simple, dial 908 and select your desired package. You can call the same number, that is 908, and select your one favorite number for 24 Hours Free Calls.

Another way is to send an SMS “Sub<Space>free<Space><Mobile Number>” and send it to 908.

Pricing (All Prices are including Taxes and are for 60 Seconds)

Monthly Subscription free of Rs. 500+105 = Rs. 605 (Rs. 105 are taxes)

Free Package Nationwide Tarrifs - 60 Second Pulse (Including Taxes)

ZONG to ZONG: Rs. 2.42
ZONG to any other network: Rs. 2.42
SMS to any network: Rs. 0.24
ZONG Friends and Family numbers: 10 numbers
1 Free ZongNumber *: Free
Late Night Offer (Midnight to 7:00 am)**: Rs. 4.82 per hour
Break Time Offer (Noon to 2:00 pm)**: Rs. 4.82 per hour
ZONG Friends and Family rate: Rs. 1.21
MMS: Rs. 3.63/100KB
Mobile Internet: Rs. 12.1/MB

• ” = Limited Time Offer
• ** = All Zong Numbers
• You can subscribe to ZONG Free Package by dialing 908 with onetime charges of Rs. 15 only - Excluding Taxes (first time migration to this package is free)
• Balance validity is based on re-charge
• The free number can be modified only once every month
• You can choose to unsubscribe from Break Time offer by calling 310

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Telenor Talkshawk : 0.75 Paisas Per 30 Seconds, All Networks

Posted by: Aamir Attaa on October 24, 2008 at 7:41 AM

It seems like a new week of cellular packages has arrived as Telenor Talkshawk has fanned the fire. Telenor Talkshwak has offered very simple and inexpensive rates: 0.75 Paisas per 30 seconds on all networks, simple enough I suppose.

Tariff:

• Telenor to Telenor: Rs. 0.75
• Telenor to other Network: Rs. 0.75
• Telenor to PTCL: Rs. 0.75
• Telenor-Telenor – Friends and Family: Rs. 0.45
• Telenor to other network - Friends & Family: Rs. 0.75
• SMS to any Network: Rs. 1.00
• International SMS: Rs. 5

All prices are excluding taxes. When tax included, Rs. 0.75 will become Rs. 0.91

Please note that this offer also includes Bundle Minutes, that we covered here. Terms and conditions for Bundle Minutes apply.

How to Convert to Telenor Talkshawk

All existing Telenor prepaid customers can convert to Telenor Talkshawk 30 second for Rs.10 (inclusive of tax)

• Dial 345661/345662, and follow the automated voice: Rs.0.25 exclusive of tax
• Or send an SMS “Migrate” to 345: Rs.2/SMS exclusive of tax.

You may also like this ad about the service that features Annie!

Continue Reading This Story

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Warid’s Zoom SMS Package

Posted by: Bites85 on October 23, 2008 at 6:59 PM

Post by Bites85 of Newz On Fire

Zoom Package by Warid was the first un-metered SMS package for Pakistani Cellular Users back in 2006. It was an instant hit as mobile users were able to send unlimited SMS/MMS to any network in Pakistan for just 5 PKR a day. The service was widely used by all the demographic; even advertisers took heavy advantage of unlimited text messages, and started sending SPAM, which ultimately resulted a ban on unlimited SMS and package was revised by Warid to quota specified SMS/MMS schemes. Now almost all the cellular companies provide cheap SMS packages. But Zoom is still loved by many people. Even i’m a Zoom addict.

These days there are two Zoom packages available for the Warid’s Zem prepaid users. Zoom Limited and Zoom Unlimited.

Zoom SMS/MMS Rates

How to Activate Zoom

• To activate Zoom packages just dial 100 from your Warid number
• One-time charges of Rs.2+tax apply per activation.

How to Check Remaining SMS/MMS in your account?

There was a problem with Warid’s Zoom Package, as Warid did not provide any way to check the remaining SMS/MMS, like other cellular companies. So people use to do a little calculation or use their message counter to check how many messages they have sent.

But now finally Warid has also started to let its users check that how many SMS/MMS they have consumed. Usually after we make a call or do any paid activity, we get a summary of that transaction. Now when we (ZOOM USERS) do any call or paid activity we get a summary of that call/activity and also get a summary of how many SMS/MMS we have consumed.

The new summary received is like the following when you make a call to 321:

“Your last call cost 0.61 PKR; your account remains 74.21 PKR. You have consumed 124 free SMS/MMS of your ZOOM package”

Still you have to make a paid activity to get this summary (or you will have to call 321 to get this remaining SMS/MMS information).

I think Warid should provide any other sort of notification service, so the balance should not be wasted to check the consumed SMS/MMS. There should be a short e.g *123# to receive this summary, so that its users can check their remaining quota without paying anything.

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How to Get Address Details of a Mobile Number?

Posted by: Muhammad Ali Raza on October 23, 2008 at 2:50 AM

Few days ago, a friend of mine was looking around for someone’s mobile info; like he was interested in knowing his address details and some other basic information. Previously we had a combined friend in a Telecom company, so such little things were not big issues. However, now he is in Canada for a better job. Hence my friend asked me to figure out some way but I was left with no option. We kept on wondering about how to tackle this do or die situation.

After doing some research, I just found a very good way to find someone’s info. (I am sharing this to let you guys know how badly configured our online systems are, and how insecure our information is)

You can get someone’s name and city right? Its very easy, simply call helpline and plead a little, and they give away this info and its not hard part (I did this personally). Also name and city can be acquired by your cousin or cousin’s friend who is working in cellular company franchise. (Franchises can access to name and city of any number)

So now we have victim’s name and city and last name (last name is must here, as it is used to find address).
See, we can acquire complete details from this basic information, in fact you would be surprised that many online phone directories offer this very personal information like a duh!

I wonder, how this very private data of PTCL was stolen away, and above this, how daringly these websites are offering free online directories of this sensitive and private data. I am not promoting these website, but just wanted to share how insecure we are.

http://17.ptcl.net.pk/

check it out, PTCL’s online directory - taking advantage of such thing is not bad! Is it?

Here is magic string use it well boys

“http://17.ptcl.net.pk/subcsribeinfoResult.asp?txtname=NAME&txtadd=CITY&submit1=Search”.

Change NAME with the last name of victim - that we got from call center or franchise; while change NAME with city name.

Here you go, match your number with name and enjoy! There are good chances if name is rare one, as you will get less results for uncommon names. And in case of multiple results, and if you are not sure about your match, simply call the number from any PCO and act like TCS or DHL guy, and tell them “Sir we have a letter for you from XYZ bank, can you please confirm your address” you guys can give him same name address from that’s city he will confirm you this address, even if it was incorrect huh how much hard this was?

Lessons for us!

Please Immediately block all these services, as they are of no good. They are just used for ill means. Even, if there are some genuine inquires, they must be routed to PTCL’s helpline 1217, which should verify its legitimacy prior to revealing any details.

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Cellular Subscribers Cross 90 Million Mark - Mobilink still falling

Posted by: Aamir Attaa on October 22, 2008 at 12:52 PM

The Mobile Phone subscribers’ base in Pakistan has crossed 90 million mark as 640,624 subscribers were added in September 2008 at the monthly growth rate of 0.7 percent, which is slightly better than of August 2008.

Latest stats made public by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority for the month of September 2008, concludes that total number of subscribers in the country have reached 90.2 million mark, despite10.5 million blocked unregistered numbers - while mobile density now stands at 55.9 percent.

Following graph shows net addition/subtraction in customers for each cellular company.

Mobilink’s subscriber base continued its decline and fell to 31.35 million, resulting in a fall in market share to 34.8 percent. In contrast, Zong once again scored top position by adding 289,418 customers. Warid and Ufone remained very closed and added 213,219 and 209,891 customers respectively. Telenor added 156,268 customers in month of September 2008.

Mobilink continues to occupy the top slot with a market share of 34.8 percent, followed by Ufone (20.8 percent), Telenor (20.5 percent), Warid (17.9 percent) and Zong (5.6 percent).

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