Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd (PTCL) has launched special international call rate packages for its customers to for Christmas and New Year. This includes a special tariff of Rs 0.40 per 20 seconds to the international destinations, which includes ISA (fixed + mobile) Canada (fixed + Mobile), China (fixed + Mobile), UK, Australia and Germany (fixed only).

Tariff:

Rs 0.40 per 20 for landline and mobile in following countries:

* United States
* Canada
* China

Rs 0.40 per 20 for landline in following countries:

* United Kingdom
* Australia
* Germany

This offer is valid till 15th January 2010.

For More Information call PTCL Helpline – 1236.

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KARACHI – A significant quantity of Chinese-made handsets are available in Pakistan that come without valid International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) that has posed serious threats to the national security as such phones have allegedly been used by the terrorists.
It was found that the lack of unique IMEI numbers has made it impossible to detect the suspected calls from a specific handset. It was further learnt that IMEI series allocation happens only in hardware type approval.
Moreover, these Chinese handsets are fully functional, however, they lack IMEI programming because Chinese manufacturers are usually not registered companies thus no IMEI range is allocated to them.
The government of Pakistan has yet not initiated any plan to combat this issue. On the other hand Indian media has reported that as many as 25 million Chinese handsets were blocked in India which were available in the market without valid IMEI numbers. It was reported that the move came after The Department of Telecommunications, India (DoT) had instructed the operators to block cell phones without a valid IMEI number.
In this regard several phone sellers have confirmed that the Chinese handsets are usually the duplicates of branded phones. These mobile phones are without IMEI numbers which are typically low-end handsets manufactured by the small Chinese phone manufacturers who cut their costs by skipping the IMEI programming stage.
They were of the view that cellular companies and manufacturers in the country are heeding to adopt the prerequisites in this regard but they have yet to streamline mobile connection ownership issues.
“Let’s not expect any super natural thing in Pakistan regarding this in near future,” commented an official. He further said that the cellular operators in India had offered such subscribers to either discard their handsets or bring them to official outlets of cellular companies to re-programme their IMEI numbers.

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KARACHI: The Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA) in its recently released report gave an overview of the sector for FY09. “The year was marred by depleting fixed line connections and a marked slowdown in cellular growth,” the report read.

Although cumulative sector revenues rose by 19 percent to Rs334 billion, investment in the sector dropped by 47 per cent to $1.6 billion as most of the foreign operators faced difficult times given tough economic conditions. Broadband emerged as a potential force during the year, the report stated.

The Fixed Local Loop (FLL) segment was the worst performer in FY09 as the subscriber count continued to dwindle. As of Jun 09, subscribers stood at 3.5 million, dropping by over 20 per cent year on year, as infrastructure related issues and lack of investment saw consumers switching to the more convenient Wireless Local Loop (WLL) and cellular technology.

Interestingly, the FLL data for April-June paints a slightly better picture, as subscriber base remained flat hinting that the worst may be over. The move to bundle fixed line with broadband could provide a cushion going forward. Further, the growing clout of WLL should limit the damage to the local loop segment.

The Long Distance & International (LDI) segment performed well as revenues rose by 119 percent to Rs.48billon. Total international traffic (incoming + outgoing) reached 8.9 billion minutes from 7.1bn minutes in FY08 mainly led by 73 per cent growth in outgoing traffic.

A combination of cheaper rates and improved package plans offered by operators helped outgoing minutes reach 2.9 billion; however, increase in Approved Settlement Rates (ASR) curbed growth in incoming traffic to single digits after a three years (FY05-FY08) CAGR of 86 per cent.

The PTA has recently taken steps to resurrect the situation, with a downward revision in ASR, which is likely to assist LDI traffic and reduce the flow of grey traffic. The LDI segment has always remained a major revenue contributor to PTCL (14-15percent of total revenue) and is expected to remain so in the years to come.

Amid higher penetration levels (54.7 per cent in Jun 08), growth in cellular segment slowed to 7 per cent in FY09. Penetration reached 58.2 per cent while cumulative revenues reached Rs212bn, up 17pc.

Industry wide ARPU’s have fallen to $2.5 per month from $3.1/month in FY08 driven by a combination of high degree of low income prepaid customers and intense competition. Resultantly, all major operators barring Ufone (low infrastructure cost thanks to PTCL) are in the red, indicating consolidation is around the corner.

Additionally a detailed observation of the industry statistics, suggests that while urban penetration approaches the maturity phase, there remains untapped potential in the rural areas of Pakistan. Hence, it is expected increased focus from the major operators towards the rural areas particularly in NWFP and Baluchistan. The security situation there though remains a major bottleneck in achieving higher penetration.

The broadband sector remained a major out performer as 246,000 subscribers were added in FY09, taking the total to 414,000 – with PTCL, Worldcall and Wateen having a combined share of 79 per cent. Low penetration level of 0.26 percent, suggests massive room for growth, in our view. Hence we have witnessed an influx of new operators investing in technologies such as DSL, Fiber, WIMAX and more recently EVDO all pointing towards take off in subscriber base in the next few years.

Mustufa Bilwani telecom analyst at JS Research stated, “We expect FY10 to be another challenging period for the sector with low investment and limited avenues for growth. M&A activity, particularly in the cellular segment seems to be on the cards as the segment continues to consolidate. Broadband and other value added segments are likely to drive growth while FLL may see consolidation at current levels.”

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ISLAMABAD: The final document on first-ever-five-year Information Technology (IT) policy document is submitted to the Planning Commission of the government of Pakistan, said Salim Ghauri, Chairman of the Task Force on Information Technology and Communication Technologies (ICT).

In a statement he said that the Planning Commission will examine the document and finalize it by February 2010 before tabling it to the Parliament.

The Government of Pakistan had formed the Task Force on ICT to place Pakistan as a major player in software exports.

Other objectives included the development of domestic software/ computer hardware and telecom equipment industry, development of citizen centric applications/services especially in local language, raising quality and enrolment of I.T. education, creating large employment opportunities in IT/Telecom, making Pakistan a major I.T. manpower exporter, making recommendations for the promotion of IT/Telecom sectors, suggest incentives and estimate the investment requirements for the GOP and private sector.

The recommendations of ICT task force will go not only into the next five year plan (i.e. 2010-2015) but also to make contingency planning for reducing the impact of global economic crises on Pakistan.

Ghauri said the IT policy document has strongly recommended the government to incorporate the IT policy in the national trade policy.

He said the IT industry was all set to lead Pakistan’s exports in near future provided the government is serious in recognizing its potential like the neighbouring country.

He said the IT policy document has also urged the government to facilitate the software houses in registration with the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to make them visible in country’s exports.

“Earnings of the companies doing I.T. exports are much higher than the figures reported by the State Bank of Pakistan,” he said, adding: “The IT industry exports have touched to the magical figure of $1 billion and ways and means are needed to be explored to encourage the IT companies for reporting their exports earnings to the SBP.”

He said the Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) data suggests that only 17 I.T. companies were registered with SBP, a few years back, which has now increased to about 179 companies against a total of around 1200 IT companies registered with the PSEB.

He said the Task Force has also assigned the task of survey of the IT industry to the PSEB to ascertain the actual size of the industry, which later on would be published by the federal statistical division.

The meeting was attended by Dr Samar Mubarikman, DG Planning Commission and representatives from PSEB, Ministry of Information Technology and other departments

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ISLAMABAD: Internet service providers (ISPs) in Islamabad have registered complaints with the ministry of information technology against what they called ‘unfair’ market practices and ‘unreasonable’ policies.

‘Blocking voice packages on internet indiscriminately’ topped their list of worries.

‘The authority has been blocking internet IP addresses indiscriminately without issuing notices,’ said an ISP, adding ‘We don’t object that PTA blocks illegal traffic but most genuine customers like call centres, corporate and home customers have been facing problems every time they want to use this facility – cut off and significant decrease in flow of traffic.’

The ISPs approached the ministry regarding complaints in the recently signed DSL interconnect agreement between Pakistan Telecommunication Company and the internet service providers. ‘We categorically made a point that all the ISPs were signing it under protest because there was already a lot of pressure on us,’ said another ISP.

Even though the ISPs claimed that they had no objection to renegotiating the agreements, ‘Amendments were made by reducing the duration of the agreement to two years that was initially agreed to last more the ten years coinciding with the licences of the ISPs,’ said an internet service provider.

In their complaints, ISPs urged the government to look into the issue to remove the Rs150 PTCL line rent for providing DSL. ‘Our stance is that fixed line customers pay nearly Rs200 line rent separately. Another Rs150 line rent did not make sense,’ he said.

Even though secretary IT assured of immediate action but five months on the ministry of information technology has been silent. ‘The IT ministry is aware of our grievances. And we turn to them for solution,’ he added. PTA conceded blocking IP addresses but only those operating illegally.

‘Our system monitors heavy traffic over the internet and most importantly traces illegally operating ISPs. We involve the FIA to apprehend culprits and have had 100 per cent success. Issuing notices or early warnings would alert offenders before we move in on them,’ said an official with the PTA.

When contacted, an official in the ministry of IT also conceded that ISPs were facing problems regarding operations and the ministry was looking into it to provide them relief. —Staff Reporter

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ISLAMABAD: The Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) on Wednesday accepted the assurances given by China Mobile and Ufone for their misleading advertisements and decided not to impose any penalty on them.

However, the companies have been warned that in future CCP will take a very strict view of non-compliance or contravention of the Competition Ordinance, 2007.

According to CCP, both Ufone and China Mobile have assured through an undertaking in writing that they will comply with the provisions of the regulations.

Earlier, the CCP had issued show-cause notices to both the companies for misleading advertisements.

The CCP had observed that Zong’s advertisement ‘8 Anay per call’ advert was false and misleading and in violation of Section 10 of the Competition Ordinance, 2007.

The CCP noted that the said advertisement lacked reasonable basis regarding the price, call rates, or inclusiveness of government taxes being not specified and its character and the duration of call at which the rates were applicable was not stipulated clearly.

The CCP observed that the televised advertisement of Ufone’s Uwon Package did not mention that the advertised rates, to call other networks, are applicable on per minute calls.

As per the submissions of Ufone the advertisement contains a disclaimer. However, the same is in English and was neither visible nor readable.

The order further states that, such information must be clearly conveyed to customers as the advertised call rates increase, when 21 per cent FED are included in the advertised call rates.

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ISLAMABAD: The growth in cell phone sector has witnessed a bit of a squeezing trend as Pakistan Telecommunication Authority started blocking millions of unregistered connections after the launch of SIM information system-668.

Although the new system was introduced officially in mid-October, the subscriber’s based widened only by 10,452 in this month, which showed that users base may contract after blocking of unregistered numbers.

In October, the overall customer base reached 95.918 million with only 0.01 percent growth from preceding month. Besides Ufone, all four cellular phone companies witnessed minimal addition of users on their network.

Owing to downfall in revenues, most of the telecom operators adopted ‘cost-cutting measures’ during the year 2008-09. Throughout the year, the sector’s financial health could not be improved in accordance with the expectations owing to taxes and falling exchange rates, which placed unprecedented burden on the operators import bills.

A senior official at a cell phone company said due to economic slowdown, saturation in the market and global financial crisis, the total investment in the telecom sector during 2008-09 has reduced.

He said despite the fact that the operators have speedily rolled out their infrastructure, reaching out to most of the population, there still remains huge areas like Broadband, WLL and manufacturing, where investment opportunities exist.

To cope with the financial crunch, telecom operators adopted optimization of human resources and cut in employees perks.

As per data, the leading mobile operator, Mobilink, slipped from green to red zone in earnings because of the falling exchange rate and rapid drop in the subscribers’ base.

A dismal situation in fixed-line penetration is the major area of concern for the policy-makers and the regulator in Pakistan. After issuing a number of licenses to the fixed-line operators, the regulator believed that the market forces would play their due role for its expansion, but unfortunately, this could not happen.

However, despite these difficulties, the sectors revenue grew by 19 percent which poses confidence in the government and regulators’ policies. Unlike expectations, most of the fixed-line operators could not roll out the infrastructure maintaining the incumbent operator still the dominant player with its old copper based infrastructure a main hurdle in the sector’s growth.

It was also expected that a rapid roll out by wireless technology (WLL) would compensate the declining fixed line penetration, which too did not happen due to lack of investment by WLL operators. Furthermore, the WLL operators like Wateen and Wi-tribe have smartly diverted their resources to Broadband expansion in 3.5 GHz and invested on new technology like WiMax.

This, too, caused slow growth in the fixed line sector. Issues like right of way and lack of unbundling also proved major hurdles in the fixed line sector’s growth. A huge investment is required to roll out new generation of fibre networks in the country.

This gives a major opportunity to large scale investors to secure their investments in Pakistan in this segment of the industry. During the year, a total of $1.6 billion worth of investment has been made by all the operators, of which the cellular mobile share is about 75 percent.

The WLL has marginally increased investment from $52.8 million in 2007-08 to $82.11 million in 2008-09. However, the rest of all of the sectors have reduced the level of their investment. During this period, Pakistan attracted FDI worth $3.7 billion altogether. In the current year, the telecom sector received over US $815 million FDI.

Major countries which invested more than 70 percent in last five years in Pakistan’s telecom sector included United Arab Emirates, United States of America, Norway and China. The UAE emerges as the leading country investing over 36 percent of the total FDI in the telecom sector in the last five years. UAE invested in companies like Wateen, Warid Telecom and PTCL.

Etisalat, UAE based company, bought out 26 percent shares of the PTCL worth $2.4 billion. The UAE has invested over $2.3 billion in the telecom sector of Pakistan since 2004-05. China Mobile has its first overseas adventure in Pakistan cellular mobile sector, in addition to telecom manufacturing, through companies like ZTE and others. Investment from China exceeded US $599 million in the telecom sector of Pakistan during the last five years.

Telenor, a Norway based company, also brought about half a billion US dollars foreign investment into Pakistan during the last five years. The telecom sector contributes 1 to 2 percent in the total GDP, making its share in total tax revenue as 6 to 7 percent per annum. During the year 2008-09, the sector continued to contribute handsome amount in national kitty through various taxes and regulatory charges. – APP

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ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has directed all cellular mobile operators to ensure quality of service during Eid days and other such occasions and inform subscribers properly about withdrawal of any packages and bundle offers prior to their suspension.

The PTA issued these directives in a meeting with mobile operators at PTA headquarters.

The regulator asked the companies to ensure inclusion of adequate information in any media campaign about the validity period of SMS bundle package along with their discretion to withdraw the said offer.

The operators were told that they should intimate the regulator well in advance whether the SMS bundle package would be withdrawn during occasions like Eid, New Year, etc.

It may be mentioned that value-added services such as SMS packages offered by the mobile operators are un-regulated in terms of pricing and validity. Furthermore, bundle packages are optional which require consumers to opt for and agree to the terms and conditions offered by the operators.

Since SMS bundle packages are not mandatory, the PTA says it is only regulating quality of service and the operators are required to conform to quality parameters as per terms and conditions of the licence.

On Eid-ul-Fitr, it was observed that some mobile operators withdrew their SMS bundle packages without prior notice to the subscribers and the PTA. In this connection, the PTA received several complaints from the mobile subscribers.

The PTA took strict notice of the situation and wrote to all mobile operators demanding explanation.

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The State Bank of Pakistan and the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority have agreed to introduce a unified regulatory framework for enhancing mobile banking in the country.

“It has been decided to set up a Joint Regulatory Committee,” said a joint statement released after a meeting held at SBP, Karachi recently between Syed Salim Raza, Governor, State Bank of Pakistan and Dr Mohammed Yaseen, Chairman PTA.
This Committee, which will comprise members from both the SBP and PTA, will to introduce unified regulatory framework for Third Party Solution Provider (TPSP) system. It will propose modification in existing regulatory or legal framework, if needed. Further, an M-banking
Stakeholders Group (including mobile network operators, financial institutions, Ministry of Information Technology, PTA, SBP, SP/integrators) is also proposed to be set up, which would address technical standards, product and services, licensing regime and relevant operational
issues etc.
“We hope that this understanding will encourage innovative technological products which would ultimately enhance outreach of financial services in the country,” the statement said. Mobile banking offers a variety of financial/non-financial functions, including merchant
payments, utilities bills payments, fund transfers, and remittances etc. The synergy likely to be created by the financial institutions, mobile operators and other partners will bear very promising results.
In Pakistan, such innovative services have been possible through introduction of Branchless Banking Regulations (BBRs) by State Bank. Subsequent to BBRs, the Ministry of Information Technology issued Policy Directives to PTA to prepare a framework on technical
implementation of BBRs.

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ISLAMABAD: Cellular subscribers rose 6.3 million in fiscal year 2008-09 as compared to 25 million net additions in 2007-08, suggesting that the saturation in the market, economic slowdown and heavy taxes could be major reasons for the slow growth, annual report of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) showed.

Regarding complaints received by the PTA from consumers of cellular operators during July 2008 to June 2009, total complaints stood at 7,479 out of which 45 per cent complaints were related to misuse of service, obnoxious and fraudulent calls or SMS.

Amazingly, the PTA report states that only nine per cent complaints were related to quality of service (disruption/faults in service). However, consumer complaints regarding PTCL showed that out of total 5,288 complaints, 73 per cent were about quality of service, disruption/faults in service in 2008-09. On the issue of market share in terms of subscriber base of mobile phones, the report states that the main contributor to the net increase was Telenor, which added about 2.8 million subscribers while Zong and Warid added 2.4 million each during last year.

Having more choice available to consumers resulted in a reduction in the share of Mobilink by 15 per cent while other operators show increase in their market share.

Although Mobilink is still enjoying major market share in cellular subscribers, it receives a setback by losing around three million subscribers in 2008-09.

During the reported period, Mobilink continued to stay at top in the country’s mobile market with 29.14 million subscribers, followed by Telenor and Ufone competing fiercely for the second position with 20.9 million and 20 million subscribers respectively. Both the companies registered a subscriber growth rate at 16 per cent (Telenor) and 11 per cent (Ufone) correspondingly; however the growth in subscribers of Telenor (69pc) in the preceding year was much higher than that of Ufone (29pc).

Warid ended this year with a total subscriber base of 17.8 million. However, Zong has been reported a subscriber base of 6.4 million.

In 2009, total number of Mobilink subscribers stood at 29.136 million, Ufone 20.004 million, Zong 6.386 million, Instaphone 34,048, Telenor 20.893 million and Warid 17.886 million. Total revenues of telecom service rose to Rs333.882 billion in 2008-09 against Rs278.508 billion in the last fiscal year 2007-08.

Out of total revenues, the share of cellular operators in revenues stood at Rs212.423 billion, Local Loop Rs62.640 billion, LDI Rs47.969 billion, Wireless Local Loop (WLL) Rs2.670 billion and VAS (estimated) Rs8.179 billion during the fiscal year 2008-09.

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