Cyberia

Wi-tribe Pakistan Ltd, a new entrant in the Pakistani communications industry with a major focus on providing WiMax solutions, has chosen Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management and key components of the Oracle Communications Service Fulfilment Suite, including Oracle Communications Network Mediation, Oracle Communications Service Activation and Oracle Communications Order and Service Management, to better manage its business from the onset of launching new WiMax services.

“We have ambitious growth and development plans for the next few years and it is a great advantage to start off with Oracle Communications’ well-integrated applications, which can help us address our business and operational needs,” said wi-tribe Pakistan Ltd CEO Mohammad Sadiq.

“Oracle has been a significant provider of business support systems (BSS) and operational support systems (OSS) to the communications industry, and we are pleased to help wi-tribe meet its aggressive business goals with Oracle Communications applications. We are committed to helping wi-tribe Pakistan Ltd become an innovative service provider leveraging the Oracle Communications applications suite to deliver a robust, profitable and world-class services offering,” said Raghav Sahgal, vice president, Asia Pacific & Japan, Oracle Communications.

The Universal Service Fund (USF) and Wateen Telecom (WT) on Wednesday signed an agreement to provide optic fibre connectivity to those rural areas of Sindh, where a fibre optic cable had not reached. Addressing the contract sighing ceremony, the Sindh Chief Minister, Syed Qaim Ali Shah said that the PPP government was increasing the level of telecom penetration significantly in rural areas, including Sindh.

He said that despite market liberalisation and growth in the telecom sector, there were certain geographic areas, as in the province of Sindh that were still unattended or under-served for commercial considerations. It was the USF’s first such contract that had been awarded to WT. The chief executives of the two sides signed the contract on behalf of their respective organisations.

Earlier, highlighting the objectives of the IT ministry, the Federal Secretary, Information Technology, Hifz-ur-Rehman underlined its various initiatives for the proliferation of IT and telecom in the country. He said that the ministry, through the USF, had been running rural telecom projects in various parts of the country, including Sindh, in the unattended areas of Sukkur and Dadu divisions.

Rehman further said that the project of fibre optic connectivity would benefit a population of about 3.5 million, still deprived of the benefit. The CEO of USF, Parvez lftikhar explained in the ceremony that the Fund consisted of contribution from telecom operators and was utilised to extend telecom networks to the areas awaiting the service.

He said that with such initiatives, the population of less developed areas, like those in rural Sindh, would be able to access to modern facilities like tele-medicine, tele-centres, government, e-commerce and education. The Home Minister, Dr Zulfiqar Mirza, Minister of Irrigation and Power, Syed Murad Ali Shah, Advisor to CM, Siddique Abu Bhal, Special Assistant to CM, Waqar Mehdi were present on the occasion.

Wateen, Pakistan’s first and largest WiMAX service provider has announced new packages. A statement here on Monday said that the users will be able to enjoy innovative and affordable connectivity solutions and will be able to further benefit from access to Wateen’s high-speed Internet and the wireless freedom.

It said that the customers can get affordable Broadband Internet, incredible speed and crystal-clear voice quality on the “Free for life family” package where calls within the Wateen network are absolutely free and unlimited. Tariq Malik, CEO of Wateen comments, “What we do, brings people closer together and as a communications powerhouse, Wateen realises its responsibility to the people. That is why we provide telecommunication services which enable customers to communicate more effectively.”

MSI Computer said Friday that it will show off an upgraded MSI Wind netbook that is WiMAX capable at the Consumer Electronics Show in January.

The U120 is almost identical to the existing MSI Wind, save for the WiMAX option. An optional 3G card can also be added. The netbook also features a significant improvement in storage space, doubling the hard drive capacity from 80 Gbytes to 160 Gbytes.

Otherwise, the specs seem largely identical to the previous Wind, which won a PCMag.com Editor’s Choice award: a 10-inch display anchors the product, which is also built around a 1.6-GHz N270 Atom microprocessor. A 4-in-1 card reader is included, as is the option for a standard or retractable mouse.

The price of the new MSI wind U120 was not released, nor was its ship date. MSI representatives did not immediately reply to requests for comment

Mobilink, that has announced the commercial launch of Mobilink Infinity, a wireless broadband and telephony service for residential and enterprise consumers based on the mobile WiMAX standard, estimates the service will attract 50,000 subscribers by the end of the year.
Mobilink Infinity went live on October 22 in Karachi, Pakistan’s financial capital and major business centre. In its very first week, the service attracted several thousands of subscribers. ‘When choosing a partner for Karachi commercial launch, time-to-market and product readiness were key decision-making criteria,’ the President and CEO of Mobilink Zouhair A Khaliq said, adding that the company saw Alcatel-Lucent as one of the most advanced WiMAX players. The maturity of their technology and the quality of their support have been excellent throughout the project.