Ever noticed a local mobile number show up on your caller id when recieving calls from abroad? If that happens the call is probably being routed through an illegal call termination point within Pakistan. The PTA and FIA raided a house in Lahore’s DHA district that had equipment used to terminate international calls. They arrested one person and registering a case against two others.
Illegal international call termination points
November 28th, 2005Undersea cable lands at Karachi
November 23rd, 2005After becoming the laughing stock of the world (along with economic losses going into Millions of dollars) when losing internet connectivity to the entire country and not having a backup line, we finally recieve a new undersea optic fibre cable. Hopefully this solves the peoples problems of bandwidth along with affordability.
Transworld Associates (TWA), Pakistan’s first private undersea optic fibre cable operator, announced today that its undersea optic fibre cable system, TWA-1, has landed at its cable landing station in Karachi.
With direct cable landings in Karachi , Fujairah (UAE) and Al Seeb (Oman), the TWA-1 undersea optic fibre network would offer end-to-end, direct broadband, high-speed connectivity to Pakistan’s growing number of telecom operators, internet service providers, and corporate customers, a press release said.
Speaking on the occasion, Kamran Malik, Chief Operating Officer TWA, said, “This is a proud moment for Pakistan considering that we are the first Pakistani-owned submarine cable system.”
Cellphone subscriber base crosses 18 million mark
November 16th, 2005Around May the alleged figure was 10.5 million cellphone subscribers which was possibly misleading. 6 Months later, the number of subscribers is now claimed to stand at 18 million. That is phenomenal growth (or imaginative accounting). If the trend continues, land lines will soon be outmoded–a welcome change. It can’t be good news for PTCL.
The Man Who Will Save the Internet
November 14th, 2005From the register comes the story of the Pakistani who will save the internet and the politics behind it. For those living under a rock, it’s related to the World Summit on the Information Society being held in Tunisia and primarily the controversies behind Internet Governance.
It’s been four years since the issue of how the internet should be run, and by whom, became an official United Nations topic.
And yet despite hundreds of hours of talks, three preparatory meetings and a world summit, there is only one thing that the world’s governments can agree on: Masood Khan, Pakistan’s ambassador.
If a certain US senator and a certain EU commissioner are to be believed, the internet is five days away from total collapse as governments are finally forced into a corner and told to agree on a framework for future Internet governance.
Both are wrong, but there is a very real risk that an enormous political argument resulting in lifelong ill-will centred around the internet could developed unchecked at the WSIS Summit.
The fact that it hasn’t already is effectively down to one man: Mr Khan. He was chosen as chair of Sub-Committee A during the WSIS process, and his remit includes all the most difficult and contentious elements - not just internet governance but also how the world will deal with issues such as spam and cybercrime.
Even though press attention has focussed on the undecided question of control of the internet, at the start of the process there were widely varying views on just about every aspect of the internet.
And yet through a mixture of careful, respectful and open dialogue, occasional prodding and a dry sense of humour, Masood Khan has turned what could easily have become a bar-room brawl into a gradual formation of agreement.
WLL operators move to shutdown operations
November 9th, 2005The Daily Times reports that Etisalat aren’t the only ones disgruntled with Pakistan’s telecom sector. DVCOM along with other wireless local loop operators have moved a petition before the Lahore High Court demanding PTA return their license fees due to breach of contract.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2005%5C11%5C09%5Cstory_9-11-2005_pg5_3
“As per the defined regulation in the policy, at least 25-kilometre area should be provided to the WLL operators, but due to pressure from cellular operators, the PTA is not allowing this range,†said the source. He said DVCOM and other companies had challenged this strategy of the PTA and pleaded if the authority did not review its policy, the amount deposited by operators as license fee should be paid back.
Earlier this year the International 450 Association warned PTA about the repercussions of changing the terms of contract.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_12-8-2005_pg5_2
“The IA 450 believes that the current determination by the PTA severely limits the introduction of advanced wireless technology and is not in the long-term interest of country, by impacting the economic growth in rural areas where the objective of increasing teledensity will be restricted,†said the letter.It said no inter-cell handovers and roaming on other networks would be allowed. The handover, which is restricted under the policy, is an event in radio network in which the control of a call in progress is transferred from one cell to another cell of one frequency to another frequency.
But the operators and international organizations fear the PTA policy may force small operators to wrap up their operations and this will hit the image of the country’s growing telecom sector.
“WLL operators restricted to offering only fixed wireless access with no mobility are at a significant competitive disadvantage due to limited availability of affordable terminals and inability to offer attractive communications solutions competitive with those offerings from current fixed and mobile operators,†said the IA 450.
Survey: Internet Usage Trends in Pakistan
November 1st, 2005I am working on a small project to statistically establish likes, dislikes & preferences of fellow resident Pakistanis regarding their choice of online search engine, free web-based email service & instant messaging (IM) software.
I had to conduct this online survey myself as there are no detailed official statistics available regarding ‘internet usage & its trends in Pakistan’. I have already contacted MoITT, PTA, ISPAK, PSEB & PASHA but there has been no significant feedback.
You can participate in this online survey @ http://www.badar.com.pk/survey/survey.php?sid=28
Your participation & support would certainly help get a better insight. Thanks in advance for your precious input.
PTCL-Etisalat deal collapses
October 30th, 2005UAE’s Etisalat has failed to make the final payment for the takeover bid of PTCL. The deadline had been extended 2 months from August to October. Etisalat’s bid was $1.96 per share while it’s nearest competitor China Mobile bid $1.066 per share–almost half. Surely Etisalat management must have felt like a bunch of idiots and their knee-jerk response was to demand various concessions (deferred payments, tax exemptions, permission to trade stock in the UAE market) to make up for their grave miscalculation. What action should be taken next?
Outage
October 30th, 2005The web host for tech.one.com.pk had a hardrive failure and the last backup they had went back to August resulting in a loss of quite a few posts. Google did have the cache of the posts for some time, but they seem to have updated their index and cache and the posts are lost.
We apologize for the loss and are taking measures to do routine backups of the database to avoid such a failure in the future.
Paknet offers free DSL installation and subscription(?)
August 15th, 2005Things are starting to heat up in the broadband space. This has to be a first: Business Recorder reports that PakNet, as of 14th Aug is offering free DSL installation on their ‘Rage’ plan — For a Rs 899/month scratch-card they are offering a 256kbps, 1-Gb/month volume capped pipe. All most all broadband companies such as Cybernet and Multinet charge as much as Rs5,000-Rs15,000 for installation and purchase of the dsl modem upfront. This offer looks quite attractive for someone who wants to get up and running without having to worry about too much inital investment.
Technology behind the new cruise missile?
August 14th, 2005Recently Pakistan successfully tested the “Hatf-VII-Babur†cruise missile. The story has been covered by the international press everywhere because of it’s geo-political implications. There are very little details about the technology behind the missile. Here are the breadcrumbs I’ve found by groveling the net:
An unknown army official says:
“It is a terrain hugging missile, which has the most advanced and modern navigation and guidance and a high degree of maneuverability and its technology enables it to avoid radar detection and penetrate undetected through any hostile defence system”
PakistaniDefence.com has videos and a few more details about what the missile is capable of:
The military said the launch of the missile, which has a range of 500 kilometers (310 miles), meant that Pakistan had “joined a select group of countries which have the capability to design and develop cruise missiles”.
….
Babur was launched vertically with the solid booster motor. Immediately after the launch its guidance and control system takes over and it gains speed and after a few seconds its rocket booster motor is separated. Then the missile automatically opens its wing as a jet plane, and moves towards its target. Special cameras installed in the missile, control and manage its height by minutely monitoring ups and downs of land.
The News is reporting that National Engineering and Scientific Commission (NESCOM) claims that the missile will be in full production sometime next month (their ‘coming soon’ website here).
That’s about all I could find relating to the technology behind the missile. I have a few more questions I would like answered about the missile: Which institution is responsible for creating and putting together the missile prototype? Is it produced indigenously? Who wrote the software for the guidance system? And how does NESCOM fit into the picture?