Cyberia

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on Friday awarded, to successful bidders, five Wireless Local Loop (WLL) licences, worth Rs 26 million, for providing innovative telecom services in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and Northern Areas (NAs).

Pakistan Telecommunication Limited (PTCL), Wateen, Direct Link and Telenor Pakistan participated in the bidding process. In 3.5 GHz spectrum, bidding for Mirpur (TR-1), one block was awarded to Pakistan Telecommunication Limited (PTCL) against a bid of Rs 10 million, while the bid for second block could not be proceeded because no company showed interest.

Similarly, for Muzaffarabad (TR-2), PTCL gave the highest bid of Rs 4 million, followed by Wateen, which matched the price. For Northern Areas (TR-3), Wateen offered highest bid of Rs 4 million, and second block went to PTCL at the same price.

PTA Chairman Dr Mohammed Yaseen said that the issuance of WLL licences would add to the efforts of the government to provide enhanced and affordable telecom services to the people of the area. The bidding of WLL licences in 3 Telecom Regions (TR) is likely to capture huge investment as well, he added.

He said that earlier there was only one operator in AJK and Nas, but when competition was introduced, and new operators started their services, all segments of the sector witnessed rapid growth.

He said that with a teledensity figure of 2.6 percent in 2005-06, the region was lagging far behind the rest of the country in terms of telecommunication services. Two years after the deregulation in the area, the teledensity of AJK and NAs stands at 33 percent. Mobile subscribers figure of just 5000 three years back now it jumped to 1.6 million subscribers, he added.

He said that increased investment by the newly licensed operators had certainly contributed in laying the foundations for a modern and state-of-the-art telecom network in the area. It also has positive impact on the standard of living of the people of AJK and NAs owing to increased economic activity and enhanced job opportunities, he added.

He said that PTA has already deposited around Rs 1.2 billion to AJK and NAs, earned against the award of 5 cellular mobile licences for these areas. It also collected around $170,000 against the issuance of fixed line licences as an initial amount. Thus, the telecom deregulation in these areas has acted as a catalyst for the development of region’s economy, he said.

The launching of Wireless Local Loop (WLL) service in the AJK and NAs will provide enhanced and cheap telecom services to the people and would fetch huge investment in the region. He termed completion of the spectrum of bidding as the culmination point in the deregulation of telecom sector of AJK and NAs.

He expressed gratitude to the telecom operators and CEOs of telecom companies for taking interest in the bidding process, and assured them that PTA would extend full cooperation in the successful launching of their business.

PTA Chairman presided over the bidding while Nasrul Karim A Ghaznavi, Member (Finance) was also present during the bidding. The bidding was witnessed by representatives of telecom industry investors, media men, telecom experts and professionals.

Federal Minister for Postal Services Mir Israr-u-llah Zehri has said that Pakistan Post will soon initiate new services utilising modern communication technologies to provide maximum facilities to people, says a press release.

The federal minister was speaking at a signing ceremony of an agreement between Pakistan Post and Mobilink, here at the Postal Staff College Islamabad. The new service ‘Mobile Money Order’ will enable the mobile users to transfer amount through SMS in co-ordination with Pakistan Post, Mobilink and Customer Internet System.
After registration of the customer, the Mobilink System will give a PIN Code to the mobile user, which will be used for the transfer of desired amount. The customer can get his transferred amount through designated post offices in the country.
Zehri said with the launch of this service Pakistan Post will enter into a era of innovative services and will emerge as a modern day service provider.

Mobilink on Friday has been declared the winner of the ‘Most Preferred Telecommunications Company 2008′ at the Graduate Employer Award organised by the Pakistan Society of Human Resource Management (PSHRM) and Engage Human Resources.

Mobilink was recognised by PSHRM and Engage Human Resources at a ceremony announcing the results of the Most Preferred Graduate Employer 2008 study in which 1100 graduating MBA, Engineering and IT students were interviewed and asked which company they prefer to work for upon graduation. The Most Preferred Graduate Employer study this year, covered students from Business Administration, Engineering and Information Technology.

The country’s largest mobile services company was chosen from amongst the best known telecommunication companies operating in Pakistan. Compensation was one of the most important factors along with ample learning and career opportunities, managing employees’ career aspirations and providing them with opportunities for growth and development cited by graduating students in choosing an employer.-

By 2009 Ufone will open new job opportunities for over 900 young graduates through its newly established contact centre in Islamabad, a facility created with three million USD investment in state-of-the-art IP based technology. Butt informed media that the company operates a total of 6 state-of-the-art contact centres all over the country.

However, the addition of the second contact centre in Islamabad is a major way forward to address customers’ queries and complaints in the quickest possible time

A training workshop on ‘Quality of Service in Telecom’ would be organised here at Iqra University on November 29, with a view to create awareness on issues affecting growth in this important sector of economy. The course, being organised by Leadership and Management Development Associates (LMDA), is designed to give a fair idea about the basics of service quality in the context of telecom companies.
Professor Dr Ali Sajid is a resource person of this workshop, who has trained more than 4,000 professionals in various fields of management. He is also a national level trainer and consultant has been part of the faculty at Bahria University, Nust, CASE, MCS, EME College and FJWU. It is mentioned here that today’s marketing environment was characterised by increased competition, uncertain economic conditions, and shifts in global trading relationships.

In search of competitive advantages, business organisations are placing more focus on the quality of service delivery. Research has shown that high service quality contributes significantly to enhanced profitability and increased productivity.
In the wake of the emerging global financial crisis, Telecom organisation need to be more sensitive to their customer’s delight by showing extra care towards fulfilling their expectations of an error free, foolproof and flaw less service.

It is heartening to note that forward looking telecom companies, like Mobilink, are looking to new service initiatives as a way to create or sustain competitive advantages. Understanding customer satisfaction is, therefore, critical to the process of serving the customer and responding faster and better than the competition.

Telenor Pakistan selected Nokia Siemens Networks service assurance software to improve customer experience for its over 18 million subscribers. The customer traffic monitoring and analysis software provides a detailed, real-time view to user activity and service usage throughout the network enabling the service provider to respond immediately for any rising problems.

It can also give valuable insight into users’ behaviour. Telenor Pakistan has the fastest growing and the largest EDGE/GPRS enabled network in the country. The Nokia Siemens Networks service assurance software will provide diagnostic services like information on service usage by data subscribers, time and area of service usage, problem identification and troubleshooting. This information will then be utilised to determine areas of improvement to ensure flawless services to the customers

The business community has strongly criticised the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited for making unprecedented increase of 421 percent in the charges of universal access numbers (UAN). The PTCL changed the tariff rate for the UAN number subscribers without any intimation to the customers while no advertisement was given in the national press to publicise the tariff increase move.

The company enormously and absurdly increased the charges from Rs 3623 to Rs 18,876 per quarter, which is absolutely an impediment for smooth operation of any business organisation under the prevailing circumstances, said Zonal Member of the Federation of Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry Kh. Khawar Rashid while talking to Business Recorder here on Wednesday.

He termed the tariff increase an unethical and unlawful business practice that PTCL has carried out and this shall only result in an increase in their outstanding bills. No one would agree to pay such huge amount on account of UAN numbers, particularly when other charges are being made cheaper, he said and added the PTCL would earn a hefty amount from the subscribers.

The PTCL sources, on contact, said that the UAN service was commenced about 13 years back in 1995 and since then the company had not increased a single penny in the tariff. On the contrary, during last 13 years, the inflation has been substantially increased, rupee depreciated against the dollar, while electricity, petroleum and diesel prices had gone up in recent past.

Because of severe load shedding, every PTCL exchange had to install diesel generator to overcome the power shortage issue that added additional financial burden on the company, the sources said. The UAN service had remained severely under priced and the company had no option to either terminate the service or increase the tariff. It had become necessary to upwardly revise the UAN charges to meet the rising cost.
PTCL is still providing this service at cheaper level as compared to regional countries like India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. India provides the same service at Rs 5000, Nepal Rs 9,000 while Bangladesh charges Rs 4000 per month, the sources claimed. About prior intimation to the consumer, the sources said that currently the users of UAN numbers are in thousands and the company had issued memo to the all the major subscribers.

To a question, the sources said the company does not need any approval from Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) for increasing tariff, however, the company had consulted the PTA officials in this regard prior to increase effective from October 1, 2008.

The sources further disclosed the PTA whose role should have been restricted to only regulate the telecom service providers in the country, is indulged in the business. It has retained all attractive UAN numbers with itself including 111, 0800, 0900 and selling one number at a cost of Rs 300,000-Rs 400,000, the sources maintained.

ZONG, the first international venture of China Mobile, has fulfilled its commitment of further expanding its network coverage along Karakoram Highway. It may be recalled that in February this year, ZONG welcoming the expansion and widening project of Karakoram Highway (KKH) had announced that its service will soon be available all along the highway.

This latest expansion includes launching of services in Daggar (Bunair District), Chilas, Dassu, Bunji, Sikandrabad on KKH and Astore on the tertiary route within Northern Areas. Speaking on the occasion, Zafar Usmani Chief Operating Officer ZONG, stated, “This launch is another promise fulfilled by ZONG for its customers in Pakistan.
We will be covering areas in the northern belt and in AJK and we are fulfilling every commitment that we had made. The company has been focusing on aggressively expanding its network coverage amid growing demand from people living across the vast and diverse geography of Pakistan.” ZONG by now has its network in several major cities of the Northern Areas including Gilgit, Hunza, Skardu, Besham and Sust and now it will have more adjacent surrounding areas too.