TextPK Blog

Viper Technology signs MoU with Intel

ahmed — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 18:00:12 +0000

Pakistan’s leading IT solution providers, Viper Technology, signed an MoU with Intel Pakistan Corporation for Intel Easy Step Basic Course. Through this program Intel will provide Viper trainers with basic IT information for further trainings to the local IT firms. This will accelerate the access to technology and improve opportunities for education, commerce, healthcare and communication. Picture shows CEO Viper Technology, Mr. Khushnood Aftab and Country Manager Intel Pakistan Corporation, Mr. Ashar H. Zaidi exchanging the MoU while Ms. Sharleen Ghouri from Intel and Faisal Sheikh from Viper Technology are also present

Kids’ Cell Phone Ownership Has Dramatically Increased in Past Five Years

ahmed — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 17:33:33 +0000

Cell phone ownership among children has increased 68% in the past five years, according to MRI’s recently-released American Kids Study. Twenty percent of U.S. children ages 6-11 currently own a cell phone, up from 11.9% of children in 2005. The most dramatic increase has been among 10-11 year olds (+80.5%).

Moreover, in the past three years there has been a spurt in cell phone ownership among boys. Cell ownership among boys increased 47.6% since 2007, compared with a 17.2% increase among girls.

“This large increase in cell phone ownership, particularly among boys, comes as more wireless providers are targeting parents through feature-rich, kid friendly phones such as Disney Mobile’s LG Phone and the Firefly Communications FlyPhone,” said Anne Marie Kelly, SVP, Marketing & Strategic Planning at MRI.

“Preliminary data suggests that boys and girls may use their phones differently. Girls are more apt to make calls and send text messages while boys are more likely to instant message, access the Internet and download games, music and video. It will be interesting to explore these data over the next few years and see if this trend continues.”

Top Cell Phone Activities for Children Age 6-11:

Activity	%
Call my parents	88.1%
Call friends	68.1%
Emergency Purposes	55.7%
Text Messaging	54.1%
Play Games	49.0%
Take Pictures	47.8%
Listen to music	34.4%
Picture messaging	24.2%
Download ringtones	16.5%

PTCL Confrence Call

ahmed — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 01:41:28 +0000

PTCL is the largest Telecom Services Provider in Pakistan and always strive to create value for its valued customers. Keeping this objective in mind, PTCL has introduced another interesting and handy service branded as PTCL Conference Call (3 Party Call) service. This unique service is a good opportunity to bring families and friends closer especially on festive occasions. PTCL Conference Call is designed to enable PTCL customers to make more than one call at one time in conference mode to talk to their relatives, beloved ones and office colleagues.

How to use the service?

To initiate the conference call, the subscriber will dial the first person with whom he wants to talk and wants to be a part of conversation in three way conference. To add the third person in conversation hook flash button is pressed (subscriber hears dial tone) and phone number of the third person is dialed. Once third person picks up the call, hook flash is pressed again followed by digit three and then conference calls starts. (If there is no hook flash button then hook up key on cradle will be used)

EVO:Refer 5 Friend and Get Discount

ahmed — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 19:30:09 +0000

To increase the sale of EVO devices PTCL is offering a sales discount type offer. If you are and existing Evo user you can easily get this offer, Just refer EVO to your 5 friends and get 25% discount in your monthly charges for 5 months.

How it works?

First of all you must be an existing Evo Postpaid subscriber. Get a friend or family member to sign up for a new Evo connection and PTCL will give you 25% off from your next monthly bill. You can refer as many friends as you want! PTCL will give you 25% off each month for every friend that you sing up! i.e. Refer 3 friends and get 25% off for next 3 months.

How to do it?

Fill in the contact details of anyone you think might be interested in an Evo connection in the form that can be found HERE. Your friend will get an email letting them know that you have referred them for an Evo connection. PTCL will also call your friend to confirm their order. If your friend signs up PTCL you will get 25% off on your next bill.

Note:

This offer is only valid for our existing Evo postpaid subscribers, however your referred friends can choose any package (prepaid or postpaid).
Your friend must pay his first month’s bill for you to be eligible for 25% discount on your next month’s Evo bill.
There is no limit to the number friends that you can refer.
If the friend that you have referred returns the Evo you will not be eligible for any discount.
If you have referred more than one friend you will get 25% off per month for each friend that you have referred. Example: Refer 3 friends and get 25% off for 3 months.
You can refer your friends from any city where Evo service is available.

Wireless Service Teledensity Increases Upto 1.7% In Nov-09

ahmed — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:19:40 +0000

The teledensity of wireless telephony services has registered a slight increase of 0.1 percent in the country after a period of six months. It reached to 1.7 percent by end of November 2009, latest statistic of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) showed on Friday. The overall Wireless Local Loop (WLL) connections increased to 2.72 million across the country on the network of eight operators by November.

Sector people said the slow roll out of services by operators in rural areas is diminishing the potential of wireless media, however it has great demands in different cities of the country particularly its success utility for public call services sales. WLL operators’ unlimited fixed daily calling added thousands of new users during the last couple of months and attracted new customers. Value-added services also caused growth in users and telephony voice and non-voice services.

The wireless telephony services are frequently used for international calls due to its affordable call packages. The traffic of international calls has been increasing continuously in the current fiscal year. Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) has recorded high number of users with 1.3 million followed by Telecard and WorldCall, having 0.645 million and 0.571 million connections by November 2009. Wateen’s users stand at 0.128 million by end of the same month.

The number of subscribers has seen correction in the last couple of months because of healthy competition among the operators. The other four operators’ user base named Great Bear, NTC, Link Direct and Mytel have been stagnant for the last two months.

PTA claims that WLL services are available across Pakistan in 14 telecom regions. According to PTA, there are 3,451 cell sites in different cities providing coverage in 11,669 urban and rural areas by the end of the last fiscal year 2008-09. The number of cities finished in some areas by the operators stood at 12,000 in 2008.

Resource DAILY TIMES

Jazz International Direct Dialing Offer

ahmed — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 08:16:28 +0000

Mobilink announces special prices for selected countries, which are as low as Rs. 1.36 per minute against a weekly subscription charge of Rs. 10 per country. Meaning that if you subscribe for one country, then you can call Rs. 1.36 per minute to that specific country for one week.

Customers will have to subscribe to their desired destination once a week. One time Subscription Fee will be charged at the time of Subscription. Subscription Validity period will be 7 days. User can opt for maximum of 9 destinations at one time (separate fee per destination will be charged).

Country Available:

SR. #	Destinations	Country Code	Subscription Fee
1	Australia (L)	61	Rs. 10
2	Canada & USA (L+M)	1	Rs. 20*
3	China (L+M)	86	Rs. 10
4	Denmark (L)	45	Rs. 10
5	France (L)	33	Rs. 10
6	Germany (L)	49	Rs. 10
7	Greece (L)	30	Rs. 10
8	Ireland (L)	353	Rs. 10
9	Italy (L)	39	Rs. 10
10	Netherlands (L)	31	Rs. 10
11	Portugal (L)	351	Rs. 10
12	Singapore (L+M)	65	Rs. 10
13	Spain (L)	34	Rs. 10
14	Switzerland (L)	41	Rs. 10
15	United Kingdom (L)	44	Rs. 10

* For Canada and USA (L+M) the subscription charges have been doubled since 2 destinations get opened through the country code of 1.

How to Subscribe?

Customer will type the name of the country and send an SMS to 424.
Once the SMS is sent, a USSD string will be sent back to the customer for further subscription for a particular country.
User will dial the USSD string on mobile screen and press send to avail the discounted rate for that country.

Example:

Customer types ‘UK’ and sends it to SMS short code 424.
The following reply message would be sent to him.
Type *104*1*44*01# & press send to avail this offer for UK (Landline)

Customer types *104*1*44*01# and presses send. After sending the USSD, customer will be subscribed to the feature and a confirmation message would be sent to him.

How to Unsubscribe?

To un-subscribe from a particular country, customer will type the following USSD string and press send
* 104*4*<>*<>#

Where:

xxxxx: Complete country code (can be of any number of digits)
yy: Can be any of the values: (01:Landline 02:Mobile 03: Landline Mobile)

Example:

To un-subscribe from UK landline, customer will type the following USSD and press send.
*104*4*44*01#
After sending the USSD, customer would be unsubscribed from UK landline discount and a confirmation message would be sent to him.

Note:

Charging pulse for all calls is 60 seconds
The above discounted rates are not applicable for users on international roaming.
Max 9 countries can be selected at one time, with multipl subscription fee deductions for different destinations
In case of multiple selections, the validity of previously selected destination will remain intact
Weekly subscription charges: Rs. 10 per country
Combined charges for USA and Canada: Rs. 20 per week
19.5% Federal Excise Duty applies on usage and 10% Government Tax applies on recharge
Using SIMs without proper documentation is a crime – PTA
Limited time offer only

PTA Quality of Service (QoS) Parameters for Improving Fixed Broadband and Cellular Data Services

ahmed — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 17:06:28 +0000

Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) has formulated two sets of Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) to improve and monitor the Quality of Service (QoS) of “Fixed Broadband” and “GPRS/EDGE” networks.

The objective of introducing these KPIs is to create transparency and set monitor-able standards in fixed broadband and GPRS/EDGE services hence ensuring consumers’ satisfaction. Extensive consultations with the relevant operators and stakeholders were carried out for the development of these QoS parameters. The KPIs were finalized after discussing the varying views in detail with all concerned bodies which were incorporated in the final version. The document has also been made available on PTA’s website (www.pta.gov.pk).

The KPIs have been developed through keeping in view their Applicability, Possibility of End-to-End testing (non-intrusive for network under test), Ease of measurement, Ease of understanding for a field testing person, similar treatment of rural and urban regions in terms of service offerings and a push for future improvement in wireless broadband networking. The KPIs’ suite envelops parameters like Network Availability, Service availability, link speed, retainability, bandwidth, contention ratio, round trip time, tariff comparison, customer service complaints, billing complaints and service provisioning complaints, as appropriate.

It may be mentioned that GPRS (General Packet Radio service) and EDGE (Enhanced Data rate for GSM Evolution) are GSM wireless packet data transfer standards commonly referred to as 2.5G and 2.75G respectively. Using these networks; services like internet connectivity, Push-based email solutions with attachment facility, Pull-based services, instant Messenger etc are being offered to help in accessing personal or official information while roaming locally or globally. Better GPRS/EDGE networks are also necessary for introduction of more innovative Value Added Services (VAS) in future.

PTA has been striving to serve the telecom and ICT sector of Pakistan for its growth and development through different initiatives. Introduction of KPI’s for Broadband Services is an effort to achieve PTA’s vision of “Protecting Consumer Interest and ensuring high Quality ICT services”.

PTCL Won Special International Recognition Award

ahmed — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 16:47:56 +0000

On the occasion of 27th International Telecom Management Information Platform (TEMIP) User Group Conference held at Hamburg, Germany PTCL Network Operations Centre (NOC) team has been honored with ‘Special International Recognition Award’ on displaying exemplary expertise acquisition for extensive utilization/ customization of product features in an exceptionally short time span.

Muhammad Nasrullah, CTO, PTCL receiving the Special International Recognition Award

As per details, this award has been bestowed upon PTCL, among other 100 companies worldwide having HP NOC platform, for emerging as a source of inspiration for various incumbent and prospective HP customers by gaining maximum performance out of HP’s product portfolio. Another consideration for this award to be given to PTCL has been the outstanding Video “PTCL NOC” produced by PTCL NOC resources, which outlines how PTCL is focusing on its customer satisfaction by deploying in Pakistan State of The Art Service Operation Centers.

PTCL management has proclaimed this achievement would further enhance PTCL commitment towards customer’s satisfaction by continuously improving network availability and superior customer experience. This award has brought PTCL International acclaim branding it as a world class operator.

Hacking The Unsecure GSM Network

ahmed — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 09:42:54 +0000

Do you believe your phone line is secure? Do you believe that no one is listening in on your calls? Do you think that your phone’s data, all of your contacts, messages, and photos are safe and that your internet browsing is secure? If you do, may be you should think again. Sometimes its ridiculous how the most common and important technology in our daily-life is vulnerable to kinds of attacks that could bring nightmares. Still, no one is aware, no one is doing anything. Such is the Case of Today’s GSM-The most popular Cellphone Technology.

The BIG Impact:

Today, there are billions of people using GSM phone technology. So, cracking GSM encryption has BIG concerns underneath.

What’s at stake if GSM-encrypted traffic is no longer secure?

Loss of Privacy over Voice Calls – Any damn GSM call can be intercepted. This means everything.
Jamming calls – Today, Jammer’s do exist but new kind of jamming technology can be introduced that can take down communications in larger areas.
Financial institutions that use text messages as authentication tokens would be in trouble.
Business – Almost all Business end-customers will be impacted, the potential loss to the business could touch billions.
PDA and Smart-phone IP Traffic – Users that surf web, use internet over their phones for Business EMail will no longer be secure.

Cell phone usage is evolving at an astonishing rate. We are no longer relying on our cell phones for the sole purpose of making calls, but also to send emails, to access the internet, and to store a variety of data, making our cell phones a repository of personal and business information. Unfortunately, the more dependent we become on personal electronics, the more complex they become, and the more susceptible they become to security defects.

People regularly trading in confidential information, such as Government officials and executives, would be the most likely eavesdropping targets but virtually anyone with enough skills and determination could harness the research for nefarious means, security experts warn.

A group of German scientists claim to have cracked the security code that protects around 80 per cent of the world’s mobiles phones. Karsten Nohl, working with others online and around the world, created a code book showing how to get past the GSM encryption used to keep conversations on more than 3 billion mobile phones safe from prying ears.

Nohl said the purpose was to push companies to improve security. Even with Nohl’s exploit, expensive and sophisticated radio equipment placed close to the target is required to pull the calls off the air.

He shared his exploits with participants at a Berlin hackers conference this week.

Telenor Pakistan & PBCC Blind Cricket Talent Hunt

ahmed — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 20:49:54 +0000

Telenor Pakistan and PBCC are hoping to facilitate the blind with personal benefits such as fitness, stress relief, resilience, discipline, team work and leadership opportunities through the program.

The ‘Khuddar Pakistan Blind Cricket Talent Hunt’ began on 5th October 2009 spreading over two phases of selection that covered all parts of the country. A total of 16 schools for the visually impaired from 11 cities participated in the talent hunt. At the end of the selection process, a training camp was set up by PBCC in Islamabad , during which the selected forty four students were trained by the National Team Coach, Nafees Ahmed as well as other national level physical trainers.

At the end of the camp, 15 students were selected as players for the first Blind Junior National team. At the closing ceremony held at the PAF Cricket Ground, team players were awarded certificates by Air Commodore Hassan Kamran, Chairman PBCC, Syed Sultan Shah and Executive Corporate Communication Telenor Pakistan, Sohaib Mustafa.

Assistant Chief of the Air Staff (Admin), Air Commodore, Hassan Kamran, Chairman Pakistan Blind Cricket Council (PBCC), Syed Sultan Shah and Sohaib Mustafa, from Telenor Pakistan are seen in a picture with the finally selected 15 blind students at the closing ceremony of the Khuddar Pakistan Blind Cricket Talent Hunt held at Islamabad. This is the first time a Junior National Team for the Blind has been selected by PBCC under Telenor Pakistan’s corporate initiative ‘Khuddar Pakistan’ that aims to implement social inclusion for the visually impaired.