TextPK Blog » PTA

Mobilink to Charge Rs. 2 for Every Helpline Call

Mee — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 07:01:37 +0000

Mobilink has announced that every call made to its helpline will be charged at Rs. 2 plus tax (Rs. 2.42 including taxes) from November 15th, 2010.

It merits mentioning here that Mobilink had introduced this idea of charging helpline calls back in August 2008, which was then followed by all other cellular companies. You may know that Pakistan is the only country in the world where helpline calls are being charged.

Mobilink had then imposed 50 paisas on every helpline call and said that these charges are imposed to improve quality of customer support.

We are not going to comment on how much the quality service quality has improved after the imposition of service charges, instead we would recommend you to read this guide if you want to decrease wait time during helpline calls.

Expect other operators to follow this, if PTA, the regulator, remains quite.

Pakistan Text Messaging Growth Reaches 106 Billion

Mee — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 11:20:51 +0000

As we can observe that everyone around us is busy doing text messages. Due to the bulk of free SMS packages and their low rates offered by the Cellular companies, it is now in the access of every layman to send and receive text messages. According to the latest PTA report of December 2009, a total of 106 billion text messages were sent across the 5 cellular networks in Pakistan in 2009. If there are 95 million subscribers on average, it comes to 93 messages per person per month.

This rate is comparatively high than any other country. The reason may be that the youth tends to rely more on text messages. The dramatic SMS growth is good news for mobile operators in Pakistan. Most operators around the world continue to rely on text messaging as a critical source of data revenues.

SMS will continue to breed the highest share of global mobile data revenue through 2012 and will make a larger impact in emerging markets. However, SMS revenue as a percentage of mobile data revenue will turn down throughout the estimated period, as other data services made possible by the rollout of next generation networks will gain further toehold.

PTA is Holding a Seminar on 3G Mobile Phone Technology

Mee — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 15:05:51 +0000

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) is holding a seminar with the alliance of HUAWEI on 2nd August, 2010 in Karachi to inculcate the stakeholders on importance of 3G mobile phone technology. The seminar would stress on various aspects of 3G Mobile Broadband services and 3G spectrum auctions in Pakistan.

The subject of seminar is “Demand for 3G and beyond”. Secretary IT, Naguibullah Malik, would be the chief guest on this event. IT & telecom industry experts, CEOs of telecom companies, representatives of chamber of commerce and media men will also attend the event.

During the seminar speakers of national and international fame will focus on the benefits of 3G to: businesses, education, government, national economy, urban/rural public, local software houses and local contents development. They will also draw attention to the importance of high-speed infrastructure in accomplishing the benefits. Live Mobile –TV and 3G call scenarios would be demonstrated and a signing ceremony of MoU for infrastructure sharing between PTA and cellular operators of Pakistan will also take place during the event.

Introduction of 3G services would result in great reimbursement to the national economy. Pakistan’s exchequer is already earning more than Rs. 100 Billion a year in the form of taxes from Telecom sector. Improved usage will further increase tax figures.

20 May Draw Day: Why Facebook is Culprit and How Best to React?

Mee — Thu, 20 May 2010 06:24:00 +0000

We have witnessed internet users in Muslim world adopting different strategies in reaction to “Draw Mohammad” (Sallallahu Alayhi Wa-aal-hi-Wasallam). Millions of Muslims are protesting against the intents of a community on Facebook that is planning to conduct a contest for Prophet Mohammad’s Drawings.

What will happen on Draw Day?

On the 20th, people will post pictures on Blogger, LiveJournal, wordpress.com, vox.com, TypePad, Flickr, Picasa, imgur, yfrog, twitpic, and of course, on their own blogs and in videos on Youtube and elsewhere. But again, Facebook is the root cause.

Why Draw Day is Worst than Previous Blasphemous Acts?

This instance of blasphemy is not like what it had happened before in Sweden and Norway. We know that there are websites that spreads blasphemous content across the web.

But, in this instance, Web Giant Facebook is part of the game, and while Facebook has roots to each corner of the world, you can calculate the scale of blasphemy on May 20th, 2010.

What Best we can do?

Unity, under one leader!

Large scale ridicule on May 20th will ignite worldwide riots and unrest. Even worst, anti-Islam elements now have found a way to tease Muslims.

As initial response: Pakistan government has reacted and banned said Fan Page (only one URL), under Pakistan Penal Code, article 295 and 298 that is related to blasphemy law.

Ministry of Information Technology and Telecom decides on what to ban and not to, based on the rules of the land.

It merits mentioning here that MoIT has already banned around 8 million pages on internet (As per Jang News) that has any in-appropriate content and which comes under blasphemy.

On 20th, MoIT will ban as much URLs as possible.

But, let’s go bigger – governments and Media from Muslim countries must unite at this time.

This war can’t be won on roads and battlefields; instead a strategic media campaign is needed to make the western world realize that they are acting in uncivilized manner. It is them who are creating unrest and doing extremist activities.

To Boycott or Not to Boycott

There are opinions for and against boycotting the Facebook. There are people who think boycotting the Facebook is a form of protest – to make the Facebook administration realize their biased strategy, while others think they will stay on Facebook and will fight on the platform.

Background of Draw Day

To discuss it further, it is necessary to understand how and why this Draw Day came into existence.

The Idea to make funny cartoons of Prophet Mohammed [PBUH] came from a Seattle Cartoonist Molly Norris who thought of this campaign in reaction to Comedy Central’s decision to censor an episode of South Park with depictions of Prophet Muhammad [PBUH].

South Park was threatened by Muslims if it showcased Prophet Mohammad’s depictions.

Supporters of Draw Mohammad day say that the campaign is in reaction to killing threats by Muslims; however, they ignore the fact that Muslims’ threats were actually the reaction of South Part depictions. If Draw Mohammad Day supports want to react on reactions, then this chain is not going to stop anytime soon.

Later, on 27th April after a wave of anger from Muslims around the world, she decided to withdraw this activity justifying that she didn’t intend to hurt or disgrace some particular religion.

As always there is a third party to take advantage of a situation so here as well. A page was created on Facebook to continue the similar activity. Owner identity is unknown. The page created even more response than the original activity since page owners put completely disgracing sketches on it.

Supposedly and apparently, admins of this page, allegedly the jewish, created hundreds of groups and pages in order to help removing that page. This advertised the page even in thousand more way in result.

Freedom of Speech and Mohammad’s Depictions

Many argue over this fact that depicting Prophet Mohammad [PBUH] is their basic human right, given to masses by the law of many countries. But, this freedom of speech comes with limitations – Wikipedia Notes:

Freedom of speech in the United States is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and by many state constitutions and state and federal laws.

There are exceptions to these general protection, including the Miller test for obscenity, child pornography laws, speech that incites imminent danger, and regulation of commercial speech such as advertising.

Within these limited areas, other limitations on free speech balance rights to free speech and other rights, such as protection from imminent or potential violence against particular persons (restrictions on fighting words), or the use of untruths to harm others (slander). Distinctions are often made between speech and other acts which may have symbolic significance.

Now for those who are depicting Prophet Mohammad [PBUH], they clearly know that this will create hatred, mass violence and worst possible impact on Muslims’ feelings.

How Muslims are Reacting?
1-Some go to said Fan page and they abuse the owners and non-Muslims there
2-Some go to Fan page in question and argues on different topics giving their logics to prove the Fan Page unnecessary and indecent
3-Some users are creating their Fan-Pages either opposing the fan page in question or otherwise for Prophet Mohammad praise (Sallallahu Alayhi Wa-aal-hi-Wasallam)
4-There are people who are ignoring the situation but are feeling really bad in their hearts, and are unable to do anything
5-There are people who are just not only ignoring all the happenings but they are not even concerned about the outcomes
6-There are people who are sad over the incident but accepting it as they can’t do anything

Facebook’s Role in Promoting Draw Day [Allegations]

Facebook, allegedly, is supporting the Draw Day, and here are our arguments:

1-Facebook is governed under its Terms of Services. Item 3.7 of Facebook TOS says “You will not post content that: is hateful, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence”

2-“Draw Mohammad Day” was reported by at least 35,000 Facebook users, however, page is still live – giving the page a direct support (while it is spreading hatred – a violation of Facebook TOS)

3-During the campaign, Facebook is banning pages created by Muslims against Jews. In this one example, Facebook banned a Page with-in 20 minutes of its reporting by jews

The people from all over the world have reported the page but even after thousands of reports, Facebook hasn’t removed the page, giving its indirect support for the cause.

For instance one may think that it may be Facebook itself! And why not, while controversy will result in clicks, impressions, visits to this page making them earn more as well as the creation of hundreds of other new pages and groups with lot more activity as an investment for future.

Facebook is bone of contention: Because its only the Facebook that could create such an impact. With power, there was responsibility on Facebook, which it never met.

If Facebook had banned the Draw Mohammad page, in early days – none of this could have happened.

Textpk Blog’s Stance

We are Boycotting the Facebook on May 20th, 2010 and we will abandon all our activities on Facebook ever after. We have this stance because:
Staying on Facebook for reporting the bad URLs is pointless, as Facebook has made its mind to not to listen you
TextpkBlog (not saying about you) can’t preach at a platform where people are abusing and using indecent language

Note: TextPk Blogs’s stance is an individual opinion, and is not imposed on anyone.