Business Recorder reports: “The Ministry of Information Technology has approved a project worth Rs 39.458 million for the IT Services Academy in Lahore”. The 2 year project is prepared by the Electronic Government Directorate (EGD). The 2004-05 Projects page does not have any details on this yet. Some already implemented projects include Salary Disbursment through ATMS. It would be nice to see other solid work coming out of this department.
Pakistan ranked second last among ‘e-ready’ nations
April 24th, 2005According to a survey (full report here) by the The Economist and IBM Pakistan ranks in second to last on a world-wide ‘e-readiness’ scale. The survey weighed in connectivity, technology infrastructure, net adoption, supporting e-services, legal and policy environments when judging the countries. Will the recent announcement by the Pakistani Government to outsource US$50-$100 million development to the local software market help? Pakistan lagged behind all other countries except Nigeria in connectivity scores (only 1.25, this area can use real improvements).
Pakistan Telecom working on launching Mobile Number Portability
April 23rd, 2005Dawn reports that Pakistan Telecom is working toward Mobile Number Portability. All major countries have already adopted this to prevent carriers from locking in users. From the article: “The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority is working to launch mobile number portability (MNP) from November, enabling a subscriber of a cellular company to change his network operator without changing the number”. The competition is about to get stiffer. It seems to me like this is to help Telenor and Warid ease into the mobile market. Bad news for the current mobile phone carrier, great news for us.