Flare Feb+Mar issue

F E B R U A RY 1 5 - M A R C H 1 5 , 2 0 1 2CONTENTS08 | EDITOR'S NOTEEditorial

09 | READER'S RESPONSELetters to the Editor

INTERVIEWS16 |20 |32 |38 |

PTCL leader in telecom: Hamid FarooqiRaffles one stop solution for Apple lovers: Ayesha Rizwan Q stands for quality: Zeeshan Pervez The DNA of a company is its people: Reggie Aggarwal

TELEPEDIATelecom anchors Pakistan's economy Mobilink Jazz breathing life in Pak cricket teamWarid Telecom rewards its retailers Ufone celebrates 11th Anniversary Telenor acts on Jewish agenda Cell phone snatching on top of all crimes Warid gets incredible response in LUMS annual career fair SC verdict brings Tsunami in Indian telecom Telenor comes under attack in Karachi Telenor files suits against Huawei, NSN Samsung pathetic service and hapless management 2011 mobile market share figures released

12 |13 |14 |22 |23 |29 |31 |36 |39 |42 |44 |45 |

COVER STORY26 | Rehman Malik SIM card scam puts PTA, FIA on red alert

INSIGHT10 |18 |21 |30 |34 |40 |41 |46 |48 |51 |52 |53 |54 |56 |

Broadband Qos Survey 2011 Postal services pays rich tribute to Arfa Karim PTA declares Wateen topper in Wireless Broadband Survey Horrible fire engulfs Wateen Telecom Pak-India trade bridging tiesEcoStar launches affordable 3D LCD TVs E-waste becomes goldmine in Pakistan The dark side of Apple's digital textbook How to secure Wi-Fi home network? Data sharing and technology Fluttering butterflies in office IT bigwigs join hands to wipeout phishing Experts debate online Arabic content growth Virus infections stop after suspects unmasked

SYNOPSIS57 |64 |

National News International News

MOSAIC57 |64 |

National Mosaic International Mosaic

SYNOPSISMobile Review Current Mobiles Upcoming Mobiles High Range MobilesLow Range MobilesLaptops ComputersAccessoriesGaming Zone

70 |72 |76 |78 |79 |80 |81 |82 |84 |

COVER STORY26

31

16

PTCL leader in telecom: Hamid Farooq

Warid gets incredible responsein LUMS annual career fair

16PTA declares Wateen topper in Wireless Broadband Survey

38 The DNA of a company is its people: Reggie Aggarwal

20iRaffles one stop solution for Apple lovers: Ayesha Rizwan 6

Zubair Ahmed Kasuri Editor

Irfan Khan Assistant Editor

Usman Yaqoob

Director Marketing (Lhr)

M. Farooq Malik

Manager Marketing (Lhr)

Zafar Khan Afridi

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M. Naeem Mughal

Graphic Designer

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General Manager

Muhammad Saeed

Chief Photographer

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Editor sFebruary 15 - March 15, 2011

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has introduced a

new policy for issuance of SIM card, which will come into force from

1st April. We live where; nobody takes action until and unless

something happens strange. PTA and FIA Crime branch came into

action when a native news reporter got into the NADRA database and

unfolded a new drama. This illegal SIM activation shattered PTA and

cellular operators and forced them to mend procedure of SIM card

activation. Pakistan is in grip of terrorism, no one is safe or our

properties. In such situation, illegal SIM cards and usage could lead

us to some untoward condition.

Malik directed FIA crime branch for investigation, which arrested

the suspects over night. CPLC has access to NADRA database which

called vorasis. CPLC was given access to the NADRA for the

elimination of terrorism in Karachi, so that timely action could be

launched against the terrorists, but this access created a new dramatic

scene; which forced the concerned departments for stern and swift

action.

PTA and cellular operators extended cooperation for national

security, as per the new policy, now SIM will be issued after

submission of a photocopy of CNIC and the applicant will be bound to

produce the original CNIC also at the time of submission of the

application.

PTA has also developed a SIM information and Verification system

to address associated risks on security and to ensure subscription

regulations in cellular sector. The objective of the project is to provide

a consumer-based facility to mobile subscribers in Pakistan by which

they would be able to find out the total number of SIM(s) registered

against their respective CNIC number with each mobile operator. In a

statement PTA said, this new system will eliminate the need of paper

documentation at the sale points by automating the Pre-Sale

procedure thereby linking it with already automated Post-Sale

procedure called 789.

Chairman PTA congratulated all stakeholders on reaching this

milestone and hoped that the new system will further strengthen the

processes of SIM verification. He also thanked the mobile companies

for extending cooperation in successful implementation of existing

SIM verification processes and hoped that the same spirit of mutual

cooperation may prevail in future as well.

This kind of watchdog role performed by media helping in

highlighting the loopholes existing in this system, we expect such swift

actions to eradicate weaknesses. This also raises questions over PTA’s

performance. Not only SIM card activation or illegal SIM cards are the

major areas where PTA showed hopelessness but grey telephony and

poor quality service are also the core areas where PTA has to show

swiftness.

Telecom is the largest contributor to national kitty, which

deposited Rs 627 billion in the last six years while also provided

employment opportunities for millions. We have to play pivotal role in

making it the most attractive sector in the region and world.

Illegal SIM regis-

tration a dilemma?

8

Note

Zubair Ahmed Kasuri, (Editor-in-Chief) publisher

of FLARE leading telecom magazine, printed

it from Qasim Naeem Art Press, Near Bank

Road, Main Bund Road, Lahore and

published from 46J, Gulberg III, Lahore.

9

In pursuant to safeguard consumer inter-ests and in context of raising the quality ofbroadband services, Pakistan Telecommu-nication Authority (PTA) under the direc-

tion of its Chairman, Dr Muhammad Yaseencarried out the second nationwide BraodbandQoS Survey of all wireless and wireline serviceproviders throughout the country during thirdand fourth quarter of 2011.

During the survey the already devised Qual-ity of Service (QoS) Key Performance Indica-tors (KPIs) in consultation with servicesproviders were measured. These are NetworkAvailability, Service Availability, Download andUpload bandwidth Speed (i.e. how much data asubscriber can receive or send to the maxi-mum), Round-Trip Time (i.e. the time taken forthe data to reach a particular destination andreturn), Contention Ratio (i.e. the ratio of Totalbandwidth/No. of subscribers or number ofsubscribers per unit of bandwidth) and Retain-ability (i.e. for how much time a connection re-mained connected during the period of 60minutes), etc. It is worthwhile to note thathigher the bandwidth of download/uploadspeed and retain-ability and lower the roundtrip time and contention ratio, higher is theservice quality is considered superior.

PTA grades aforesaid parameters into cate-gories like A, B, C etc, based on the percentageof score obtained during the measurement. For1Mbps broadband package of wireless broad-band service providers, Wateen Telecom hasbeen placed in Category-A at Lahore andRawalpindi and Category-B at Karachi, Quettaand Peshawar. Likewise, for 1Mbps broadband

package of wireline broadband serviceproviders, PTCL has been placed in Category-A at Lahore, Rawalpindi, Peshawar and Quettaand in Category-B at Karachi.

It may be mentioned here that, Broadbandis a significant economic stimulus for any coun-try as changing dynamics of the world economy

rely heavily on well connected economic re-sources of a country. Advanced content, highquality mediums, reliable infrastructure andwell linked information repositories determine

the future of country’s economy by providingright information delivered through reliableand secure communication links at the righttime.

Performance indicators:PTA has considered the following indicators

of performance in QoS Survey:

• Service Availability,• Download and Upload bandwidth

Speed,• Round-Trip Time (RTT)• Retain-ability.Service availability: Broadband Service

Availability indicates the number of times weare able to successfully access the broadbandservices. Grade A applies to 95 percent, GradeB to greater than 80 percent but less than 95percent, Grade C greater than 70 percent butless than 80 percent, GradeD greater than 50percent but less than 70 percent and Grade Eless than 50 percent.

Bandwidth: if download and upload speedremains greater thah 75 percent of the adver-tised speed experienced for 70 percent of thetime, it is categorized as Grade A, Grade B(greater than 60 percent), Grade C (greaterthan 45 percent but less than 60 percent),Grade D (greater than 30 percent but less than45 percent) and Grade E (less than 30 percent).

Round trip time: The operator with roundtrip time of less than 70ms is placed in GradeA, between 70 and 80ms Grade B, between 80and 90ms Grade C and between 90 and 100msor more is Grade D.

Retain ability: Similarly retain-ability for

For 1Mbps broadband package of wireless, Wateen Telecom has been placed inCategory-A at Lahore and Rawalpindi and Category-B at Karachi, Quetta andPeshawar. Likewise, for 1Mbps broadband package of wireline broadband serviceproviders, PTCL has been placed in Category-A at Lahore, Rawalpindi, Peshawarand Quetta and in Category-B at Karachi

Free down load | f la re .pk

10

InsighT Flare Report

Broadband is a significanteconomic stimulus for any

country as changing dynamicsof the world economy relyheavily on well connectedeconomic resources of a

country. Advanced content,high quality mediums, reliableinfrastructure and well linked

information repositoriesdetermine the future ofcountry’s economy by

providing right informationdelivered through reliable andsecure communication links at

the right time

60 minutes without disconnection is consid-ered as Grade A, greater than 45 minutes butless than 60 minutes is Grade B, between 30 to45 minutes is Grade C, between 15 to 30 min-utes is Grade D and less than 15 minutes isGrade E.

Based on the overall score obtained in KPIs,operators are placed into categories A, B, C andD to gauge the performance of different opera-tors. The survey was carried out in Lahore,Karachi, Peshawar, Quetta, Rawalpindi/ Is-lamabad and Muzaffarabad for two broadbandservices i.e. 512 Kbps and 1Mbps.

512 Kbps broadband packages: For512Kbps broadband package of wireless broad-band service providers, Wateen Telecom hasbeen placed in Category–A in Lahore,Rawalpindi, Karachi and Quetta and Category-B in Peshawar. Similarly Wi-Tribe in Karachiand Rawalpindi placed in category-A, whileQubee and WorldCall in Karachi are placed incategory-B.

Similarly for 512Kbps broadband package ofwireline broadband service providers, CyberNet was placed in category-A in Karachi,Rawalpindi and Quetta whereas in category-Bin Lahore and Peshawar. MicroNet in category-A in Islamabad.

1 MBPS broadband packages: For1Mbps broadband and package of wirelessbroadband service providers, Wateen Telecomhas been palced in category-A in Lahore,Rawalpindi and category-B in Karachi, Pe-shawar and Quetta. Similarly Qubee andWorldCall placed at category-B at Karachi.

Similarly for 1Mbps broadband package ofwireline broadband service providers, PTCLhas been placed in Category-A in Lahore, Is-lamabad, Peshawar and Quetta and category-B at Karachi. LinkDotNet has obtainedcategory-A in Rawalpindi and Quetta and inLahore in category-C. Whereas, MicroNet hasbeen placed in category-A in Rawalpindi/Is-lamabad.

Wateen Telecom – a WiMAX broadbandservice provider in Pakistan – has been rankedthe best broadband service provider in Pak-istan.

Mr. Naeem Zamindar, CEO Wateen Tele-com, in a message to the employees on this oc-

casion stated that “This award recognizes Wa-teen’s excellence in delivering extraordinarycustomer value. Our initiatives taken over thelast year and at the re-launch are now deliver-ing the required results for our customers. Notonly is this a recognition of the hard work putin by our employees, but also a confirmationfrom our regulator that Wateen is the leader inwireless broadband services.”

He said that the Abu Dhabi Group has con-tinued to show confidence in the company andhas provided cash support of over $57 millionover the last one year.

Pakistan is the world’s 4th fastest growingbroadband market, and PTCL is the country’ssingle largest broadband service provider with95percent market share said Senior ExecutiveVice President, Naveed Saeed.

In line with the Government’s vision forBroadband growth in Pakistan, we are leadingthe country’s broadband revolution from thefront by making this technology affordablethrough lowered entry barriers; by geographi-cally bringing the service within the reach of acommon user across the country; and by con-tinuous improvements in customer care, headded.

The PTA terms Broadband as a significanteconomic stimulus for any country and PTCLDSL is spearheading its exponential growth inPakistan with a footprint in over 1,100 cities

and towns. PTCL is theworld’s first operator tointroduce UltraNet usingVDSL2 bonding technol-ogy with speeds up to50mbps on a copper net-work; and it has deployedthe Fiber to the Home(FTTH) technology.

Last year, PTCL againbecame the world’s firstoperator to commerciallylaunch 3G EVDO Rev B

service. In the form of EVO NITRO, it givesconsumers the market’s maximum speed of9.3MBPs. PTCL has Pakistan’s largest andfastest growing 3G EVDO wireless broadbandnetworks, with connectivity and roaming innearly 200 cities.

PTCL is one of the most progressive dataconnectivity a provider of the world and Broad-band is now a driver for Pakistan’s nationalGDP said Mr. Saeed. We have a responsibilityto develop Pakistan’s technology and data net-work for establishing the echo system con-ducive for our country’s economic growth andsocial uplift, and PTCL is fully primed to facil-itate that.

The first to bring to Pakistan EVO dongleswith Internet connectivity, PTCL has followedby launching its innovative 3G EVO Wi-FiCloud to connect multiple Wi-Fi devices simul-taneously and the first ever PTCL 3G AndroidEVO Tab with built-in wireless broadband of-fering Internet connectivity on the go. Re-cently, PTCL launched Pakistan’s first 3Genabled Android Smartphone, IVIO Icon Prothat offers dual support for both EVDO andGSM/CDMA network.

It is merit mentioning here that, in this sur-vey, Qubee stands in second place followed byWorldCall at number 3.

We have published users’ concerns overQubee and WorldCall poor quality of service,which has been proved in PTA survey thatQubee and WorldCall are really plunderingtheir consumers and providing low qualityservices, their customer support staff is evenpoor in taking calls and responding. Whenever,a user calls on Qubee helpline, his/her callstarted transferring from one to another repre-sentative, promises of solving out problems butcustomers’ problems remained unsolved forseveral days.

Sometimes, it took a month or two to pro-vide seamless service.But after setting downusers’ problems, their service goes down aftertwo to three days of good connectivity and thenagain the same slow process of taking com-plaints by lingering problems for so long.

It is worth to mention here, Qubee andWorldCall should have to invest in their busi-ness rather on marketing to attract users. Theyattracted users through their intensive market-ing campaigns but both have been failed tomeet customers’ demands. n


11

Flare Report InsighT

Qubee stands in secondplace followed by WorldCall

at number 3. We havepublished users’ concernsover Qubee and WorldCall

poor quality of service, whichproved in PTA survey thatQubee and WorldCall are

really plundering theirconsumers and providing low

quality services, theyattracted users through their

intensive marketingcampaigns but both have

been failed to meetcustomers’ demands

Telecom sector

showed stabil-

ity in the fiscal

year 2011 and

invested $495.8 mil-

lion with cellular mo-

bile sector being the

leading contributor. In

addition, Universal

Service Fund (USF)

also invested Rs 3.5

billion for unserved

areas in the country.

Despite challenges on

the domestic outlook,

Foreign Direct Invest-

ment (FDI) showed an

encouraging trend as

FDI by the telecom

companies was more

than 30 percent of the

total FDI landed in the

country during last six

years.

Telecom companies

reduced Foreign Direct

Investment (FDI) as

they had already estab-

lished their infrastruc-

ture. In FY 2011,

telecom sector at-

tracted over $79 mil-

lion FDI in the country

which is about 5 percent of the total besides this

telecom and information technology sector in

the country is also looking for potential oppor-

tunities with the possible emergence of Third

Generation (3G) technology in Pakistan in

March 2012.

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority

(PTA) was putting every endeavour to bring

home latest cellular mobile technologies includ-

ing the 3rd Generation.Telecom sector made its highest ever contri-

bution to the national exchequer in the FY 2011as around Rs. 117 billion were placed by the tele-com companies and PTA compared to Rs. 109.1billion that were deposited in the kitty last year,showing 7 percent growth during FY 2011.

Telecom companies deposited over Rs. 100billion on average a year totaling an amount ofRs. 627 billion deposited in the national ex-chequer during the past six years. The Author-ity alone has deposited over Rs. 72 billion innational exchequer during the last six yearswhich include Initial and Annual License Fee,Annual Spectrum, USF and R&D Fund Contri-butions. However, a modest decline of Rs. 2 bil-lion was witnessed since last year in PTAdeposits owing to non-payment of APC for USFby a few telecom companies owing to litigationsin the Court of Law. Tax collection from telecomsector remained the principal contributor in thetotal taxes received by the government. Telecomsector has more than 93 percent share in totalGST/FED collection from services sector.

During FY 2011 telecom companies con-

tributed Rs. 52.6 billion in the form of

GST/FED, 20 percent more than Rs. 44 billion

contributed in FY 2010.

If one looks at the share of each service in

total GST/FED collected from telecom sector, it

is seen that cellular services contributed Rs.

44.9 billion (FY 2011) compared to Rs. 36.2 bil-

lion (FY 2010), reflecting an increase of 25 per-

cent in one year.

As Basic Services have been exhibiting slow

growth their GST collections dropped by 18 per-

cent. Apart from GST/FED, activation tax col-

lections also spiked from Rs. 6.6 billion (FY

2010) to Rs 7.1 billion (FY 2011) owing to im-

provement in net addition in mobile subscribers

base.

During FY 2011, telecom sector invested

495.8 million with cel-

lular mobile sector

being the leading con-

tributor. In addition,

USF invested Rs. 3.5

billion in un-served and

underserved areas.

Analysis of FDI re-

veals that the telecom

sector of Pakistan needs

more investment to

boost these figures in

the near future. An ideal

case could be the auc-

tion of 3G licenses

which is expected to

bring much needed FDI

in the country. Better

economic and security

conditions in the coun-

try will further coax the

investors to bring capi-

tal into Pakistan.

Telecom sector im-

ports showed an up-

ward trend as these

jumped to 766.3 million

from $ 725.7 million in

the year before. After

getting relief in regula-

tory duty on the imports

of cellular mobile hand-

sets, mobile imports

grew to $ 218 million in the FY 2011 as com-

pared to $ 169 million in the previous year.

Director PR, PTA M. Younis said 3G is a cat-

egory of next generation mobile networks that

operates at a higher frequency bandwidth and a

larger channel bandwidth.

Moreover, large bandwidth enables 3G net-

works to support very high data rates, up to 2

Mbps, he said. "There will be lot of applications

and programming need to maintain 3G technol-

ogy, therefore, companies have been waiting for

the 3G to grab businesses from cellular compa-

nies to tap their potential,".

3G is likely to be the next big thing for the

telecom sector, will meet their requirement with

intelligence in the network therefore perform-

ance will be quick and better and information

dissemination will be made easier.

Also, the service will maintain tons of data

and video content in the best organized form.

He said that PTA would continue to introduce

latest telecom technologies for the benefit of the

consumers, adding shifting of cellular mobile

technology from 2nd Generation to 3rd Genera-

tion would take place within due course oftime.

He said that it has always been difficult to intro-

duce new telecommunication methods and tech-

nologies, adding PTA would facilitate all

operators to switch over to the latest technolo-

gies.

3G technology will enhance data speed and all

convergence services while broadcasting facili-

ties would also be available at one platform. n

Telecom sector made itshighest ever contribution tothe national exchequer in

the FY 2011 as around Rs.117 billion were placed by

the telecom companies andPTA compared to Rs. 109.1billion that were deposited

in the kitty last year,showing 7 percent growth

during FY 2011

Telecom anchors Pakistan's economy


12

Telepedia Flare Report

Despite challenges on the domestic outlook, FDI showed an encouraging trend asFDI by the telecom companies was more than 30 percent

For fans of Pakistani cricket, the sponsor-ship of cricket series by telecom opera-tor Mobilink under the Jazz brand is atruly commendable and welcome expe-

rience. Mobilink has a long standing commit-ment to the game of cricket in Pakistan and isalso the official cellular service partner for thePakistan Cricket Board. Jazz has been at theforefront of promoting cricket in Pakistan, hav-ing previously contributed towards strengthen-ing Pakistan's domestic cricket infrastructure aswell as developing cricket stars for the futurethrough talent hunt activities in partnershipwith the PCB. In the recent past, the companysuccessfully organized nationwide cricket cam-paigns including the “Mobilink Hunt for He-

roes” drive that attracted over 12,000 youngand budding cricketers from 52 districtsthroughout Pakistan last year. The entire Pak-istan Under 15 team that participated in theUnder 15 World Cup in the West Indies in 2009had been unearthed by Mobilink Hunt for He-roes, with 5 of these cricketers making it to theU-19 squad in January 2010.

Mobilink announced its support for the Pak-istan-Sri Lanka One-day and Test Series begin-ning in 2009 as co-sponsor of the tournament.The series was played in Karachi and Lahore.Since 2009 however the Pakistani cricket fanhas had to regretfully experience a dearth of in-ternational cricket on Pakistani soil owing to a

variety of reasons, but true to its commitmentof supporting Pakistan cricket, Mobilinkthrough its Jazz brand continued to bring theexcitement and pride of Pakistani cricket whenand where possible. In 2010, a nation-widecricket tournament titled “Jazz CricketHungama” was initiated.

During the 2011 World Cup, 30 Mobilinksubscribers from all over Pakistan were flownto Colombo on an all-expense paid trip toclosely experience and participate in the cricketfrenzy that had gripped the entire nation.

Later that year, Jazz announced its co-spon-sorship of the local T20 tournament held inKarachi. Jazz then supported two internationalseries; one against Sri Lanka and the ongoingseries against England. Both tournaments were

played with the UAE standing in as homeground for Team Green.

The success of the team in both these tourna-ments is truly a matter of pride for the country;with Sri Lanka being a finalist of the 2011 WorldCup and England the best Test-playing team. Ac-

cording to Jahanzeb Taj, Vice President Market-ing, Mobilink, “Our support of Pakistan cricketis not just a continuation of our belief in thepower of cricket in uniting the country, but also

symbolic of our faith in the team. This faith andpower to unite has been witnessed in reality onthe occasions of Pakistan’s wins in the test seriesagainst England and Sri Lanka. With the supportof Mobilink Jazz, Pakistan cricket will no doubtcontinue to excite its fans all over the world, andkeep the hope alive of international cricket oneday returning to Pakistani soil.” n


13

Flare Report Telepedia


14


PTCL has the privilege to introduce data servicesat corporate and consumer level. We have diversi-fied our product portfolio and although basic te-lephony is still our core product but now we haveaugmented this core product in line with our cus-tomer requirements. Being incumbent operator,PTCL has advantage of developing technical ex-pertise of maintaining telecom infrastructure andwe have capitalized this advantage by offeringwholesale services to other operators and to ourcorporate clients.

Which entities and commercial targetsPTCL aims to engage and achieve in itsBusiness Development sphere?

Hamid: PTCL aims to maintain its status asleading information and communication technol-ogy service provider in the region. We are focus-ing on corporate, consumer as well as wholesalesegment to offer voice as well as data services.Being the leader in telecommunications in Pak-istan we are committed to offer innovative solu-tions and extend technological revolution to ourcustomers. Despite the current cutthroat compe-tition in Pakistan telecom market we understandour additional responsibility to play our role in sta-bilizing the market.

Please give us a review of the kind ofservices and products that PTCL is offeringto its corporate clients.

Hamid: PTCL being the only largest ICT and

Telecom Infrastructure provider offering completeproducts suite is fulfilling the demands of enter-prise and corporate sectors. Following are the de-scription of corporate products:

1. Connectivity Products: PTCL business con-nectivity offers secure, reliable and integrated end-to-end domestic and global connectivity solutions

to cater for the demands of corporate and enter-prise users. PTCL’s connectivity products range in-cludes a variety of corporate solutions for large aswell as branch offices and small offices.

Leased Lines: Leased lines can be extended in

local, domestic and international fashions over dif-

ferent media like copper, fiber, radio, CDMA and

satellite.

Internet Protocol Products: IP based products

include the Premium IP Bandwidth, Business

DSL, VDSL, Business in a Box for SMEs, EV-DO

Dongle, EVO Cloud, I Sentry - Security and Sur-

veillance, VSAT, Virtual Private networks over

various media like copper, fiber, radio, CDMA

and Satellite.

2. Voice and VAS Products: PTCL’s commu-

nication product portfolio is tailored to help

business enterprises gain productivity advan-

tages by offering a suite of powerful conver-

gence, presence-enabled applications, and

seamless fixed and wireless communications

technologies. Plainly defined, PTCL solutions

integrated telephony and IT applications in

ways that make it easier to conduct business.

Voice Services: These include PRI - Pri-

mary Rate Interface (30 Lines), BRI - Basic

Rate Interface (2 lines), Voice over IP Services.

Value Added Services: These include Toll

Free Number (0800), Universal Access Number

The following are excerpts of the interviewwith Hamid Farooq:

How would you define Business Devel-opment for a company that has historicallybeen seen as a basic telephony operation?

Hamid Farooq: Historically PTCL had beenseen as a basic telephony operation but PTCL hadalso been maintaining necessary national/inter-national telecom infrastructure for the country.Business Development activities in saturatedmarket having cut throat competition with a highnumber of cellular operators are obviously a bigchallenge. However, PTCL understands that thecustomer needs and preferences have beenchanging and PTCL had been adaptive to thesechanges. PTCL realized the increased demand ofdata and developed state of art and robust datanetwork with highest growth rate in the region.

PTCL understands that thecustomer needs and

preferences have beenchanging and PTCL hadbeen adaptive to these

changes. PTCL realized theincreased demand of dataand developed state of art

and robust data network withhighest growth rate in the

region. PTCL has theprivilege to introduce dataservices at corporate and

consumer level


16

Interview Flare Report

(UAN), Audio Conferencing, Video Conferenc-

ing, TelePresence, etc.

3. ICT and Hosted Products: PTCL’s Hosted

Services for businesses delivers a combination

of traditional IT functions such as infrastruc-

ture, security, monitoring, storage, Web devel-

opment, website hosting and email, over the

Internet or other wide area networks (WAN).

This approach enables customers to consol-

idate and outsource much of their IT needs for

a predictable recurring fee. And PTCL being

largest converged services provider integrate

hosted services while giving customers a central

repository to rapidly and efficiently distribute

information and resources among employees,

customers, partners and the general public.

Hosted Service extends the benefit of

economies of scale and operates on a one-to-

many business model, delivering the same soft-

ware and services to many customers at once.

Customers are charged on a subscription basis,

with having huge Capex savings. This also re-

duces the technology migration risks for cus-

tomers while giving them an opportunity to

focus on their core business in a faster manner.

These include the Tier 3+ Data Centers, Uni-

fied Communications, Managed Services, Web

Hosting and Hosted Email etc.

What are your Business Development

strategies for the future?

Hamid: Customers’ satisfaction through

improved service experience at affordable price

remains at the core of PTCL future vision. By fo-

cusing the high value to volume ratio of broad-

band, PTCL will strive not only to maintain its

leadership in both wire-line and wireless broad-

band but will continue to explore new positions,

markets & capabilities in line with forward-

looking strategic positioning for the business,

and reflecting anticipated state of business.

Following are the core areas for future busi-

ness development strategies:

1. Capitalize the data need of country

through facilitating the corporate sector speed

requirement (up to 50 Mbps), penetration into

masses by introducing 256 Kbps DSL broad-

band to serve semi urban and rural areas by of-

fering affordable yet faster alternative to

dial-up service, offering high-speed wireless

broadband with Internet speed up to 9.3 Mbps

to capture on move data need, expansion of DSL

footprint across Pakistan & EVO over 1000

sites.

2. Enhanced landline usage through innova-

tion & quality of services with new products and

services offering more value to the customers

along with tariff optimization, innovative prod-

ucts for business solution e.g. date centers,

Global IP Connect, Business in a Box - a small

gateway device that provides broadband inter-

net connection sharing, Firewall security, VPN

connectivity, IP telephony, IP Camera Surveil-

lance audio/video streaming and wireless LAN

connectivity, better quality of services Next

Generation Switching Network (NGN) using the

MSAGs (Multi Service Access Gateway) is being

completed for 1.3 million customers and started

the transformation of network to GPON and

new international packages, with addition of

many global destinations.

3. Expansion of network for wholesale & IP

band width, through commissioning of I-ME-

WE submarine cable system, which extends

from Asia to Europe terminating in France and

spanning 14,000 kms and additional national

backbone network of 1,700 Km of optical fiber

cable.

How does PTCL create, manage and

leverage synergies with its mobile sub-

sidiary Ufone?

Hamid: Synergy department is committed

to facilitate all internal and external customers

of fixed line, Broadband and EVO by providing

services such as common bill collection points,

common Electronic Voucher Card for Ufone

and PTCL customers.

Synergy is helping in areas such as joint pro-

curement to get maximum discount, network

infrastructure that can save OPEX and CAPEX.

PTCL is also looking into the possibilities of

sharing properties. Several options are being

looked at on commercial/business side to cre-

ate synergy.

How does PTCL keep its competitive

edge while providing carrier services to

other operators in the country?

Hamid: Being the largest integrated

telecommunications service provider in the

country PTCL keeps competitive advantage in

the market place in the following manner.

Our aim is to be a carrier of choice for all op-

erators by offering the widest range of services

based on our extensive and reliable infrastruc-

ture present in all areas across Pakistan. This

ensures that carrier customers get a one-win-

dow-facility for all their needs and do not have

to manage multiple service providers.

Flexible and market aligned pricing of serv-

ices. For international services, PTCL provides

connectivity to our carrier customers through

three (3) submarine fiber optic cables. PTCL’s

IP network connects to global tier-1 networks

for providing reliable and resilient Internet con-

nectivity to our data and Internet customers.

PTCL ensures better quality of service com-

pared to its competitors through a large pool of

on-ground resources, which are mobilized

quickly in times of service outages and other

problems. In addition, PTCL possesses central-

ized network monitoring and management sys-

tems to monitor all aspects of its network

operations.

Since PTCL itself is in the telecommunica-

tion services business, its carrier customers

have the confidence that the technology and

services being deployed to serve such customers

is future proof and fully compliant with inter-

national standards to that effect.

What are the scope, range and direc-

tion of PTCL’s International Business Re-

lations?

Hamid: Being leading player in this seg-

ment, our focus is to maintain robust and di-

versified international connectivity through

various mediums including satellite and sub-

marine cables. We have invested in various sub-

marine cables that connect Pakistan to rest of

the world and PTCL is offering this connectivity

to other operators in Pakistan as well to support

their operations. We are constantly working to

increase data bandwidths at reduced prices. We

are offering voice and data services at corpo-

rate, wholesale and consumer levels.

Apart from corporate sector, what

broadband options PTCL is offering to

the students?

Hamid: PTCL has launched a new Broad-

band Student Bundle Package with free voice

minutes included. In addition to PTCL’s exist-

ing Broadband Student Basic Package, the new

Student Bundle Package with PSTN includes

1Mbps broadband connectivity with unlimited

downloads, 150 free voice minutes and buzz en-

tertainment portal, all just for flat Rs.999 per

month.

“PTCL has taken this initiative keeping in

view the need to provide our youth with easy

and economical access to high speed broadband

Internet, thereby expanding their knowledge,

skills and productivity.

“Such a package will make the usage of high

speed unlimited Internet not only affordable for

students but also give them the liberty to down-

load unlimited infotainment material, along

with free minutes to call on landline numbers.”

(Courtesy The Nation) n

PTCL, being leading playerin this segment, our focus is

to maintain robust anddiversified international

connectivity through variousmediums including satelliteand submarine cables. Wehave invested in varioussubmarine cables that

connect Pakistan to rest ofthe world and PTCL is

offering this connectivity toother operators in Pakistan

as well to support theiroperations


17

Flare Report Interview

Shaheed Benazir Bhutto was the most pop-ular and charismatic leader who sacrificedher life for democracy, fighting for rights ofmasses. The government had issued

Dukhtar-e-Mashriq Mohtarma Benazir Bhuttocommemorative coins of Rs 10 denomination onthe eve of her first death anniversary. After Be-nazir Bhutto, the government have issued thecommemorative postage stamp on the 17th birthanniversary of Afra Karim for her service in thefield of IT. We will never ever forget your awe-

someness pride little princess. Unfortunately sheis no more with us but her dreams and thoughtsare still alive. We miss you angel!

The Pakistan Post unveiled a commemorativepostage stamp on the 17th birth anniversary of

Afra Karim, the world's youngest Microsoft Certi-fied Professional.

Federal Minister for Postal Services Alhaj Sar-dar Muhammad Umar Gorgaij, while addressinga function held here in connection of the issuanceof the stamp as chief guest, said that some 2.5 mil-lion stamps have been issued.

He said the purpose of issuing the stamp is torecognize the talent and intellect of Arfa, who wasan asset for the nation. Her death was a tragedyfor the nation. Her extraordinary contribution in

the field of IT will be a role model for the youngergeneration, he added.

Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani, in hismessage which was read by the Secretary PostalServices Ikram ul Haq, said he was happy to know

that the Pakistan Post has issued a commemora-tive stamp on the 17th birthday of Arfa Karim.

"Arfa Karim, who emerged as a shining star onthe horizon, is no more amongst us today but hercontributions in the field of Information Technol-ogy at such a young age will continue to be re-membered for long time to come" the messagesaid.

He said that through her brilliant performance,she made the people of Pakistan proud andbrought laurels to her country.

The Prime Minister said that Arfa Karimwanted to do a lot for the talented youth all overthe world, especially for those who lacked re-sources and requisite opportunities.

"The issuance of commemorative stamps is atribute to her services and will go a long way in dis-seminating her message through the world," hesaid.

Parents and family of late Arfa Karim, includ-ing brothers were the guest of honour. AdditionalDirector General (Operations) Pakistan Post FazliSattar Khan also spoke on the occasion. He pre-sented the documentary on Arfa's achievements.

Lt-Col (retd) Amjad Karim, father of Arfa, saidthat he would continue her mission through ArfaKarim Foundation.

The Pakistan Post Foundation donated Rs100,000 to Arfa Karim Foundation on the occa-sion.

Malala Yausufzai also spoke on the occasion.The school kids also presented special songs pay-ing tribute to Arfa Karim.

A cake cutting ceremony also held on the occa-sion to celebrate her birth anniversary. n

Issuing the stamp is to recognise the talent andintellect of Arfa, who was an asset for the nation. Herdeath was a tragedy for the nation. Her extraordinarycontribution in the field of IT will be a role model forthe younger generation


18

InsighT Azhar Javed

Raffles was established in the year 2000 tomake a locally assembled branded com-puter systems based on quality, power,performance and reliability. Today Raffles

is a company with full scale marketing, Distributionand Customer services operations. Raffles is an in-ternational brand as it is being sold in countries likeUAE, Singapore, Malaysia, Mongolia, and SaudiaArabia and has Liaisons offices in UAE, Singapore,Canada and China.

Flare: How did Raffles connect with Apple?Ayesha: Raffles appointed Authorized Distrib-

utor of Apple products in Pakistan in 2006. Rafflesis also Authorized Support and Service partner ofApple Products in Pakistan .

Flare: How many iRaffles stores in Pakistan?Ayesha: At present, we have three stores in

Pakistan. Two in Lahore and one in Rawalpindi.iRaffles launched its first Apple Premium ResellerRetail Store in 2008. Former US Ambassoder AnneW. Pattererson and former US Consulate PrincipalOfficer Bryan Hunt inaugurated the store. The sec-ond iRaffles Apple Store was launched inRawalapindi in 2009. The third iRaffles store is theflagship store in Pakistan launched in 2010. It wasinaugurated by US Ambassador Cameron Munterand American Counsulate General Carmela Conroy.

Flare: Can you describe what is an Apple Pre-mium Reseller (APR)?

Ayesha: iRaffles is the only Premium ResellerStore in Pakistan at present. Apple Premium Re-seller is the place to find your favourite Apple prod-

ucts. The entire store focuses exclusively on Appleproducts whether you are a new or existing cus-tomer our trained staff will be able to find a solu-tion that is right for you. Apple Premium Reselleris a service and support counter to offer repair serv-ices to our customers regardless of where they orig-inally purchased the Apple product. Store staff willoffer hands – on products demonstration.Appletrained and Apple certified experts are trained tooffer expert advice to all kind of customers, fromconsumers and students to creative professional.

Apple Premium Reseller also offer regular in-store demonstration and training to help customersget the most out of there purchases.

Flare: What is an Apple Authorized ServiceProvider (AASP)?

Ayesha: AASP are a part of a network of AppleAuthorized business that provide comprehensiverepair and support for Mac products. Raffles is anAASP. We employee Apple certified technicians,who complete regular Apple Training and assess-ments, so you are confident that you’re getting helpfrom qualified, experienced professionals. iRafflesas an AASP can deliver quick, efficient repairs andan easy straight forward customer experience. Wehave a complete lab set up in our DHA iRafflesstore. We as an AASP provide additional serviceoften unavailable through other providers such asdata transfer, data recovery, upgrade services andonsite deployment and installation.

Flare: How do you relate Apple with educationsystem?

Ayesha: iRaffles conducts educational roadshows every quarter. It was the first time all latestApple products were on display for students. Top

20 institutions were selected to display Apple prod-ucts. LUMS, University of Management of Tech-nology, NCA, FAST, Punjab University, LahoreCollege for Women, Superior University are someof the institutions.

Mac operating system is more advanced andhelpful in making presentations and assignmentswith Key notes, pages and numbers its great. iBook

is a platform where they can purchase any bookthey want .For multimedia and graphic designingstudents Final Cut Pro is the software that is mostadvanced for composing and editing.

First time in Pakistan a free workshop was or-ganized at iRaffles on one of the most famous ap-

plications of MaciPhotos. Subject was “Take yourphotos further”. In this students were taught howto organize, edit, enhance and share there photosin a way it has never been done before. The classwas scheduled for a period of 2weeks.In response80 students came to attend the class, about 20CEO’s also could not stop themselves from themagic of Apple.

Flare: What is the response of customers re-garding the product Harmon Kardon?

Ayesha: Harmon Kardon is an American basedvery well known company. Raffles collaboratedwith Harmon Kardon in 2010, Raffles is an Au-thorized Distributor of Harmon Kardon Consumerproducts.

Harmon Kardon is specialist in Multimediawhich covers docking stations for iPhone, iPods,iPad, sound systems and high performance ampli-fiers. Harmon Kardon not only deals with superiorquality but it gives a unique look to their productswhich makes them different.

Overall response of customers and consumers isvery positive .We have a great demand of this prod-uct. Customers are given complete instore and on-site services, which adds to its selling.

Flare: Where do you see iRaffles in future?Ayesha: iRaffles is planning to launch Apple

stores in Islamabad and Karachi very soon. iRafflesis a one stop solution for all the Apple lovers. Weprovide ultimate and reliable customer services.iRaffles is the only Apple premium reseller store inPakistan. We see ourselves in educating and help-ing Pakistani youth towards the latest technology ofthe world, and becoming a brand that generationwould trust. n

We employee Apple certified technicians, who complete regular Apple Training andassessments, so you are confident that you’re getting help from qualified, experi-enced professionals. iRaffles as an AASP can deliver quick, efficient repairs and aneasy straight forward customer experience: Ayesha


20


Pakistan’s leading converged communica-tions service provider, Wateen Telecom,has been ranked the number one wirelessbroadband service provider in the country

by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).In a survey for quality of service for all broadbandservice providers, Wateen ranked first in the over-all standings for all wireless broadband operatorsin the country.

In pursuance of PTA’s role to safeguard of con-sumer interests and growth of quality broadbandservices, PTA carried out the second nationwideBroadband Quality of Service (QoS) Survey of allwireless and wireline service providers through-out the country. The survey was conducted duringthird and fourth quarter of 2011. It is worthwhile

to note that QoSgenerally deter-mines the stand-ing and status ofcountry’s telecomservices; there-fore, special em-phasis is exertedto keep the QoS ofbroadband com-panies at a satis-factory level. PTAhas devised QoS

standards/Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) inline with best international practices and in con-sultation with service providers. The post surveyanalysis is carried out on the basis of scoresagainst each KPI.

Wateen Telecom, with its vision of enablingevery man, woman and child in Pakistan throughcutting edge technology is the leading wirelessbroadband service provider in the country. It is thepioneer in bringing wireless broadband technol-ogy to the country and the first in the world to roll-out a WiMAX network on a nationwide scale.

On this occasion, Chief Executive Officer (CEO)Wateen Telecom Naeem Zamindar in his message

to the employees has said: “This award recognisesWateen’s excellence in delivering extraordinarycustomer value. Our initiatives taken over the lastyear and at the re-launch are now delivering therequired results for our customers. Not only is thisa recognition of the hard work put in by our em-ployees, but also a confirmation from our regula-tor that Wateen is the leader in wirelessbroadband services.”

Over the last year, Wateen has invested heavilyin improving and expanding its network, work-force, systems and processes to ensure delivery ofan outstanding customer experience in the future.The Abu Dhabi Group has continued to show greatconfidence in Wateen and its new managementand have provided cash support of over $57 m inthe last 12 months. This has helped the companyin optimizing its network by deploying new sites

and relocating existing ones to deliver the bestquality of service for its customers.

Wateen began its operations in Pakistan in2007 with the deployment of the largest fibre opticnetwork in the country. Moreover, Wateen is theworld’s first company to commercially roll out aWiMAX network on a nationwide scale. Wateencurrently services over 250,000 WiMAX sub-scribers, provides enterprise solutions and dataservices to over 200 leading organisations and itscable network reaches over 125,000 households inLahore and Multan.

With a new strategic vision and managementin place, Wateen has steadily improved its serviceprovision and its corporate structure to adequatelyreflect its corporate motto and beliefs of ‘EnablingCustomer Lifestyles’. Wateen is aiming to helpshape the education, social and economic devel-opment in the country using broad‐‐based Internetprovision.

Wateen offers a wide range of sophisticatedtechnologies to meet the needs of institutional andpersonal users alike. In broadband internet Wa-

teen Telecom offers competitive solutions for en-terprises that include Virtual Private Networks(VPNs) and their management, International Pri-vate Lease Circuit (IPLC) set up and managementand, finally, state of the art facilities for Co‐‐loca-tion/Tele‐‐housing for customers to deploy theirinfrastructure. For consumers, Wateen offers com-plete WiMax coverage in over 23 cities aroundPakistan, as well as wire‐‐line internet services andcable TV entertainment.

For carriers and internet operators, Wateen of-fers managed capacity with its clear channel cir-cuit or Layer 2 MPLS Virtual Private Network(VPN). Wateen also offers Dark Fibre leasing forcarriers. Dark Fibre is leased to organisationsseeking dark fibre connectivity on an IRU basis,i.e. Indefeasible Right of Use, which varies from 3years to 20 years, depending on customer prefer-ence. Further, Wateen’s offerings for carriers in-clude VSAT services, Lambda networking andIPLC private lines and co‐‐location services.

Wateen has a team of experienced and dedi-cated professionals who understand the businessand technical issues of diverse industries and cantherefore accurately translate customer require-ments into the development of both network in-frastructure and new services. Through thedeployment of network integration and applica-tion skills, using leading data and Internet tech-nology, Wateen provides its customers withreal‐‐time competitive advantage wherever they dobusiness. n

CEO Wateen TelecomNaeem Zamindar in his

message to the employeeshas said this award

recognises Wateen’sexcellence in deliveringextraordinary customer

value

PTA declaresWateen topper inWireless Broadband

Wateen ranked first in the overall standings for all

wireless broadband operators in the country


21


Ufone celebrated its 11th anniversary withgreat fervor and spirit, with the commit-ment to remain the best cellular com-pany in Pakistan. Cake cutting

ceremonies were held in all Ufone offices nation-wide. Ufone’s CEO, Abdul Aziz congratulated theUfone family on successfully completing 11 yearsof achievement. He also said that “Ufone as an or-ganization is well positioned to realize the benefitsof our major strategic growth investments andstrong operational execution. At the same time, weremain passionate about positioning Ufone as theleading integrated telecomcompany in Pakistan pro-viding one of the most af-fordable and variety ofservices in the telecommarket”.

Ufone GSM is a Pak-istani GSM cellular serviceprovider; it’s one of fiveGSM Mobile companies inPakistan. Pak TelecomMobile Limited (PTML) isa wholly owned subsidiaryof Pakistan Telecommuni-cation Company Limited(PTCL) that started its op-erations in January 2001 under the brand name‘Ufone’. As a result of PTCL’s privatization, Ufonebecame a part of the Emirates TelecommunicationCorporation Group (Etisalat) in 2006.

Since its inception, Ufone has focused on thepeople of Pakistan, empowering them with themost relevant communication modes and servicesthat enable them to do a lot more than just talk, ata price that suits them the most. Along with theclaim of lowest call rates, clear sound and best net-work, Ufone offers its customers simplified tariffswith no hidden charges. With a strong anduniquely humorous communication direction thathas now become Ufone’s signature across all ad-vertising media, Ufone gives its customers manyreasons to smile.

This customer focus and best offering has al-lowed Ufone to build a subscriber base of over 20million in less than a decade. Ufone has networkcoverage in 10,000 locations and across all major

highways of Pakistan. Ufone currently caters forInternational Roaming to more than 288 live op-erators in more than 160 countries. Ufone also of-fers Pakistan’s largest GPRS & BlackBerryRoaming coverage available with more than 200Live Operators across 122 countries. More re-cently, Ufone has become a focused and intensiveleader in VAS, constantly introducing innovativeservices, which have been the first of their kindin the Pakistani cellular industry.

Ufone is an Etisalat Group Company with itspresence in all the major cities of Pakistan along

with a comprehensivecoverage across all majortowns, villages and tehsilheadquarters of the coun-try. The company em-ploys more than 3,850people and operates witha network of more than375 franchises and 22company-owned cus-tomer service centersalong with a distributionnetwork of 150,000 out-lets nationwide.

As the world oftelecommunications ad-

vances, Ufone promises its customers to stayahead, developing and evolving, to go beyondtheir expectations, because at Ufone, it’s allabout U. n

Ufone’s CEO, Abdul Aziz congratulated the Ufone family on successfully complet-ing 11 years of achievement. He also said that “Ufone as an organization is wellpositioned to realize the benefits of our major strategic growth investments andstrong operational execution


22

Telepedia Usman Yaqoob

There exist overwhelming empirical evidenceacross Pakistan and across time that Te-lenor’s managerial instability is negativelyrelated to Telenor’s economic growth and

performance. Managerial instability lowers invest-ment, slows economic growth and gives rise to con-tinuous poor performance.

Telenor is witnessing a prolonged period of man-agement issues and as such its adverse consequencesfor the economy and poor and low network qualityare quite visible. The present management failed tofind its feet on the ground and continued to lurchfrom one crisis to another. Managerial inability per-sisted throughout with a heavy toll on network qual-ity and economic losses.

The Telenor found itself clueless in addressingmanagement-economic problems in general and ex-ternal shocks in particular. Recently, Director Cor-porate Communications & Responsibility, TelenorPakistan, Anjum Nida Rahman, has resigned fromher position to get back to journalism. She had re-signed and left Telenor Pakistan by end of January2012. Anjum was appointed as Director Communi-cations & Responsibility, at Telenor in October 2010and after mere 15 months she left Telenor, there issomething under the carpet. It gave the impressionof having little sense of direction and purpose. Te-lenor continued to change its PR and HR team fre-quently and continued to appoint weak and frivolousteams with serious consequences for the quality ofservice and economy. It’s strange that the currentmanagement team claiming to have a strong busi-ness team but failed to attract new subscribers andgenerate revenue. A series of events over the last fewyears followed by their inept handling contributed tothe persistence and accelerated inefficiency.

Telenor’s current state of the poor performanceis the mirror image of the adverse consequences ofimmature management team. Over the last few yearsTelenor witnessed its investment rate decelerating,profit growth slowing and managerial instabilityrises. Recently, in a TV talk show (News Watch onDunya TV) Senator Zahid Khan, ANP Leader from

KPK has revealed that a telecom operator (He hasn’tmentioned Telenor name) had bought 7 hours of airtime from all news channels on December 25th andhad in fact sponsored PTI’s Jalsa at Mazar-e-Quaid,Karachi. In countries like United States, businessesand generally corporate sector supporting politicalcampaigns through donations is in practice for long.However, at times questions are raised when thesecorporations start influencing in policy making fortheir respective sectors/domains.

Recently, Telenor’s marketing campaigns seemaligned with Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, through theirKhamoshi ka Boycott, Rockstar song “Saada HaqIthay Rakh” and other similar activates that some-how give the impression that company is quietly butofficially supporting PTI.

All political parties should go to court of law tosui Telenor for supporting PTI, because it’s a Jewishcompany operating in Pakistan, if it supports PTIthen there will be some hidden and unfold questions,which Telenor has to be answered.

Telenor should have to concentrate on their net-work quality and service to improve rather to spon-

sor political parties and buy air time for their politi-cal campaigns. In the past Telenor had served with somany show-cause notices for poor and low qualityservice by Pakistan Telecommunications Authority(PTA).

Telenor Pakistan, in the past did some hilariousacts through which it had been criticised in media,but it made its mind not to deviate from its Jewishagenda and will follow the same path to make Pak-istan a senseless and disrespect country.

Telenor advertising pollutes the minds of young-sters by highlighting negativity in the youth and byprovoking them to disrespect teachers, elders and fe-males. These students worked hard to win awardsfor the country but Telenor, trying to throw water ontheir efforts. What’s wrong with the so-called corpo-rate reformers of Telenor who have initiated a sense-less drive in the cover of service promotion?

It merits mentioning here, Telenor has gone be-yond its policies and allegedly hired a local GoogleGroup moderator to send unsolicited emails to thoseinternet users who never subscribed to the service.In the recent past Telenor hired a Christian model ina sacred Umrah ad, in which the Christian modelperforms Umrah in Holy and sacred Muslim place.

Telenor Pakistan left no stone unturned to invadeour religious and social values. It tried to deviate ouryouth not to study and indulge in girl trapping and allother unhealthy and disrespectful activities to bringbad name for their parents and Pakistan. Telenorwith the slogan “It’s fun to be Young” is actually mak-ing fun of people, by directing the ways of flirting andfriendship in its advertisement campaigns to young-sters, which is in fact, unethical and destructive forour society.

The incumbent government and law enforce-ment agencies should have to come on forefront andstop Telenor from spreading such negativity. This ishigh time for taking action against Telenor if not yet,then Telenor is acting under Jewish agenda and itwill not only invade our religious values by pollutingour youths fresh minds but also bringing a change toplease their Jewish lord. n

Telenor is witnessing a prolonged period of management issues and as such itsadverse consequences for the economy and poor and low network quality are quitevisible. The present management failed to find its feet on the ground and continuedto lurch from one crisis to another


23



26

Cover Story Zubair Ahmed Kasuri

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority

(PTA) has introduced a new policy for is-

suance of cell phones’ SIM (Subscriber

Identity Module), which will come into

force from April 1this year. PTA and FIA Crime

branch came into action after a local news chan-

nel repoorter contacted Citizen-Police Liaison

Committee (CPLC) controller officer Mr Khalid

Noor and asked for interior minister’s CNIC copy

to disclose the ineffective operational procedure of

PTA and cellular operators, that how much the

process is easier to activate a SIM card on some-

one else particulars. The reporter called on the

helpline for

SIM card acti-

vation, an-

swered all

questions cor-

rectly and ac-

tivated a SIM

card against

Federal Min-

ister for Inte-

rior affairs’

name, the

SIM activa-

tion proce-

dure has been

captured and

then on-aired through a private news channel

which brought Tsunami in the premises of na-

tional capital, Rehman Malik directed FIA crime

branch to launch investigation, who arrested the

suspects over night. It is pertinent to mention here

that CPLC has access to National Database and

Registration Authority (NADRA) database which

called vorasis.

According to sources, PTA investigated the

scandal of issuance of SIMs on the name of federal

interior minister Rehman Malik. After the scan-

dal, the authority took the decision. As per the new

policy, now SIM will be issued after submission of

a photocopy of CNIC and the applicant will be

bound to produce the original CNIC too at the time

of submission of the application. The sources said

that all the cellular companies have agreed on the

new policy for SIM issuance.

According to sources, Cyber Crime Wing of

Karachi FIA overnight arrested Javed Noor, con-

troller of CPLC and commenced investigations

after registering a case against him for allegedly

leaking out particulars of federal interior minister

Rehman Malik.

T h e

sources said

the federal

m i n i s t e r

Malik earlier

directed to

take action

against the

group in-

volved in get-

ting SIMs

issued in the

name of im-

portant per-

s o n a l i t i e s .

Moving on his

direction, the FIA team arrested CPLC Controller.

The sources told the CPLC was given access to

the NADRA for the elimination of terrorism in

Karachi, so that timely action could be launched

against the terrorists. PTA has developed a SIM in-

formation and Verification system to address as-

sociated risks on security and to ensure

subscription regulations in cellular sector.

The objective of the project is to provide a con-

sumer-based facility to mobile subscribers in Pak-

istan by which they would be able to find out the

total number of SIM(s) registered against their re-

spective CNIC number with each mobile operator.

PTA and all Cellular Mobile Operators of the

country recently signed a joint framework to move

forward towards a new era in mobile subscriber

authentication and authorization.

According to the details, CEOs or senior offi-

cials of all five cellular operators signed this new

framework at PTA’s headquarters, which is likely

to be launched commercially by the end of 1st

quarter of 2012.

A statement issued by authority said that this

new system will eliminate the need of paper docu-

mentation at the sale points by automating the

Pre-Sale procedure thereby linking it with already

automated Post-Sale procedure called 789.

According to details we have obtained, cus-

tomer will have to present his/her original ID card

at the time of purchasing new SIM. Retailor will

bind this ID card number with the SIM, which will

be duly verified when customer will call at 789 for

SIM activation. This procedure will also eliminate

the chances if illegal sale of SIMs by unregistered

sales channels.

The new system shall not only help to eliminate

the misuse of CNIC’s copy but also facilitate in

keeping real time record of sale of SIMs thereby

enabling track of sale channels in case of any mis-

use. Moreover, transition of existing Cellular Sub-

scriber Agreement Form (CSAF) to e-CSAF will

help to maintain an authentic subscribers’ data-

base.

On this occasion, Chairman PTA congratulated

to all stake-holders on reaching this milestone and

hoped that the new system will further strengthen

the processes of SIM verification. He also thanked

the mobile companies for extending cooperation

in successful implementation of existing SIM ver-

ification processes and hoped that the same spirit

of mutual cooperation may prevail in future as

well.

Mobile Companies CEOs pledged that they will

continue to implement innovative ideas with a

view to improve verification procedures and to fa-

cilitate subscribers.

Here it is worthy to mention that, this one kind

of example set by media representatives to high-

light the loopholes existing in this regard. This also

raises questions over PTA’s performance. Not only

SIM card activation or illegal SIM cards are the

major areas

where PTA

showed hope-

lessness but

grey telephony

and poor qual-

ity service are

also the core

areas where

PTA yet to get

control.

Illegal ter-

mination of

international

traffic is a

thorny issue

and is a drain on national resources; 40 percent

traffic terminated illegally, which causes billions

to national kitty; PTA fails to counter grey traffic in

the country despite taking several measures; The

grey-ness arises because at the far end the call is

made to appear as if it originates locally; grey traf-

fic can be recognised from the fact that such calls

with either not show up or a fake number It is worthy to point out that illegal termination

of international traffic is a thorny issue. Balancethe right of a sovereign government to raise fundsas it pleases with the benefits that flow fromcheaper international communications. Smug-gling telecoms traffic over borders is in principleno different to any other kind of smuggling. Youcan spend money on border controls, and makelife harder for smugglers. You can fine them andimprison them. But the economic reasons thatpromote smuggling will remain: the costs beingpaid for international traffic are higher than theywould be in a free market without border controls.Whilst it is easy to assess the loss in tax revenuesdue to illegal traffic termination, those revenueshave to come from somewhere. With many Pak-istanis living and working overseas, particularly inthe USA, UKand SaudiArabia, com-m u n i c a t i o nbrings greatbenefits for so-ciety and theeconomy.

There hasbeen an explo-sion in inter-national trafficwith Pakistan,and prices arecoming down,but I hope thatthe PTA learnsboth lessons from this experience. Not only do youneed to automatically monitor networks to assurerevenues, but you also need to drive down prices tothe rate that would prevail in a free market. Onlythe two together will deliver the best overall returnto Pakistani citizens and consumers.

PTA despite receiving billions in dues from LDIoperators has failed to protect them. The authorityhas been unable to stop the illegal grey traffic. Itwould have been better if PTA would have takenaction also on the complaints of mobile sub-scribers and land line owners. It would have beenbetter if PTA would have kept strong check on the


27

Cover Story

PTA and all Cellular MobileOperators of the countryrecently signed a joint

framework to move forwardtowards a new era in mobile

subscriber authentication andauthorization. CEOs of all fivecellular operators signed new

framework at PTA’sheadquarters, a statement

issued by authority said that thisnew system will eliminate the

need of paper documentation atthe sale points by automating

the Pre-Sale procedure therebylinking it with already automatedPost-Sale procedure called 789

Asif Ali ZardariPresident of Pakistan

Syed Yusuf Raza GilaniPrime Minister of Pakistan

Rehman MalikFederal Minister for Interior

Dr. Mohammed YasinChairman, PTA


28

Cover Story

bad service provider in localities. It would havebeen better if PTA would have got some confi-dence and trust worthiness from the customers.It would have been better if PTA would havetold countrymen how this is the loss of nationalresources when they are earning billions on taxcollection.

It is pertinent to mention here, that telecom

is the largest contributor to national kitty but

yet the one paying heavy taxes in the region. It

still goes unnoticed that the telecom sector in

Pakistan is paying 19.5 per cent as government

taxes and this ratio is higher than that of other

countries of the region. India and Bangladesh

have respectively imposed 10.3 per cent and 15

per cent taxes on their telecom industries.

While on the other hand, the Pakistani telecom

operators are offering the lowest call rates in

this region. Telecom sector is one of the most

potential sectors which contributed Rs 627 bil-

lion during last six years to the national ex-

chequer and provided employment

opportunities in the country.

There has been a strong observation that the

high taxes on telecom sector are impeding the

growth of this sector in the country. The gov-

ernment taxes on local telecom industry are 52

percent higher than the Indian telecom indus-

try. If Pakistan takes measures to decrease this

difference then the telecom sector growth will

reach new heights in a couple years. However,

ironically the government at all levels is now

seeing the telecom operators as a cash cow,

with each bringing its own charges and levies

for one right or the other. Besides, the telecom

operators had, in the past few years, been un-

able to operate in certain areas of the country

like D.G.Khan, Wana, Swat and other troubled

areas, while the general public demands qual-

ity services on the part of telecom operators,

who find it a hard job especially amid the non-

conducive law and order situation. Subse-

quently, this state of affairs may further

discourage foreign investments. For the coun-

try to have healthy operations in the telecom

sector there must be certainty in rates and cer-

tainty in the mechanism of collection. Rates

should be as enshrined in statutes and govern-

ment, rather than tax consultants, should col-

lect taxes to remove any additional burden on

the tax payers. Telenor Pakistan is going to in-

crease service charges on card reloads to 7 per-

cent effective from February 15 this year.

Though the operators defend these additional

charges due to the increased operating ex-

penses and low ARPUs and tariffs in Pakistani

market, repeated additions in such charges and

massive taxes on telecom services is putting the

common customer with average usage under a

lot of burden. At this critical stage when the

country is heading for the auction of 3G/4G

spectrum next month, hoping to receive heavy

investments in shape of licence fee, the govern-

ment needs to come up with a set of comfort-

able revenue policies as it would help in wooing

more foreign investments in the country.

It is also worthwhile to discuss the poor per-

formance of the Federal Board of Revenue

(FBR). Government showers endless praises on

FBR despite its extremely poor performance in

tax collection in the current fiscal year.

According to the Economic Survey, despite

economic slowdown - including a decline in

both volumes of imports as well as landed

prices - and the impact of the energy crisis, FBR

has been able to exceed the revenue collection

of the previous year by a significant margin.

After going through the survey, unrealistic and

evasive appreciation is witnessed on the part of

Government towards FBR performance.

However, the FBR had missed the revenue

collection target in July-April period and was

not able to meet the target even in a single

month. FBR is already facing problems to

achieve the annual tax collection target. Direct

taxes have been a major source of FBR tax rev-

enue collection, contributing 38 percent of total

receipts.

The sub-committee of Public Account Com-

mittee (PAC) expressed its displeasure over un-

satisfactory performance of Federal Board of

Revenue (FBR) and directed its chairman to

submit report about the pending paras within

one month after holding Departmental Ac-

counts Committee (DAC) meetings.

FBR has failed to collect taxes; telecom is

the only sector which paid highest taxes but on

the other hand government agencies failed pro-

tect them and their investments. In Karachi, the

economic hub of Pakistan, three different cel-

lular franchises have been attacked by un-

known terrorists, who yet to be identified.

When something happens to govt officials their

culprits arrested overnight but nothing hap-

pened to those who attacking on cellular offices

and general public. Recently, Wateen Telecom

head office caught fire which ate away more

than Rs 2 billion, last year in Islamabad Mo-

bilink office took fire but no measures have

been put by the incumbent govt to prevent

losses. The government should have to take on

board all the stakeholders and introduce a

framework to avoid such incidents in future or

if unfortunately happens how we could mini-

mize human and capital losses. n

Telecom is the largest contributor to national kitty but yet the onepaying heavy taxes in the region. It still goes unnoticed that the

telecom sector in Pakistan is paying 19.5 percent as governmenttaxes and this ratio is higher than that of other countries of theregion. India and Bangladesh have respectively imposed 10.3percent and 15 percent; the telecom operators are offering the

lowest call rates in the region. Telecom sector contributed Rs 627billion during last six years to the national exchequer

Today the most fastgrowing crime isMobile Snatchingin Pakistan. Gangs

of teenage boys armed withpistols operate in variousparts of the city from earlyevening till late night.These criminals snatch mo-bile sets, handbags,watches or whatever theyfind from the victims. Uponresistance, the gangstersdon’t hesitate to fire atpassers-by.

Karachi topped the listof cellphone snatchingacross the country, a key in-dicator of street crimes, asmore than 200,000 peoplewere deprived of their cell-phones during the last fiveyears.

The number of people,whose cellphones were ei-ther snatched or stolenacross the country, exclud-ing Karachi, between 2006and 2011 was over400,000. A recently re-leased annual report of thePakistan Telecommunica-tion Authority (PTA) said

that the number of snatched or stolen cellphonesblocked since 2006 under their International Mo-bile Equipment Identity (IMEI) numbers by thetelecom watchdog with the assistance of the cel-lular companies and the Citizen-Police LiaisonCommittee (CPLC) stood at 623,495.

During the five-year period, according to theCPLC, a total of 219,927 cellphones, or over 35 percent of the total number in the country, weresnatched or stolen in Karachi.

“Blocking of IMEI is another successful initia-tive of the authority for the community,” said thePTA report. “This facility, opened by the authorityin 2006, is availed by the owners of mobile tele-phones for getting blocked the IMEI of theirstolen, snatched or lost mobile phones.”

The fact came as a little surprise for many.With over 14,000 victims last year alone, streetcrimes at gunpoint remained a serious problem inthe country’s commercial capital. The city policeapproach to combating the menace remained un-clear, as people aware of the city’s crime records,said that the situation would be no different interms of other crimes like vehicles snatching andlifting.

“I firmly believe that the number of reportedcrimes is lower than the exact situation onground,” CPLC chief Ahmed Chinoy told. “Peoplehave gradually accepted street crimes as a part oftheir routine life. No effective effort from policecoupled with the typical thana culture have con-vinced them to stay away from reporting thecrime.”

But another fact that raised several questionsis about the effectiveness of the cellphones block-ing system through the IMEI. The technology was

initially meant to discourage the cellphonesnatchings that on the one hand deprived the peo-ple of their valuables and on the other sparked afear in society. However, the data collected andshared by the PTA report does not sound encour-aging.

“PTA also provides the facility to unblockhandsets following SOPs in case the lost or stolenmobile handset is found or recovered,” it said.“Since the commencement of this facility, 623,495IMEIs have been blocked. Out of these, 34,902handsets have been unblocked following properverifications of owners’ claims.”

People engaged with the crime-handling busi-ness one way or the other do not sound convincedwith the ‘facility’ as claimed by the PTA.

“It has almost become ineffective,” said theCPLC chief. “When it was launched in 2006, itwas quite useful and effective, as we personallyhad witnessed a decline in the crime trend as well

as the resale of usedphones. But the technologyhas been countered by bet-ter ones. Softwares avail-able in the market unblockblocked phones withinminutes. Cellphones ofevery brand and origin canbe unblocked and unfortu-nately nothing has come upto counter that edge.”

If you are carrying aNokia Cell Phone, you aremore likely to get robbed(resale value of Nokia mo-bile phones maybe a rea-son). 74.5 percent NokiaCell phones have beensnatched followed by Sam-sung, which made it tomere 8.5 percent. 45 Trendmobile incidents are re-ported and in my opinionresale price might be a validreason.

Growing incidents ofcell phone snatching isquite alarming; no recover-ies are mentioned in the re-port presented by CPLCthat is surprisingly un-pleasant. This shows thatauthorities have failed to

guide owners to use IMEI numbers for theircover of stolen/snatched mobile.

Stolen cell phones seem to have a vast marketand are easily sold/ purchased in the markets.Another thing worth mentioning is that mobilesellers can easily reset IMEI numbers with thehelp of easily available software and failing thewhole purpose of IMEI number.

I want to give message to all those who areconcern and responsible please do positive stepsand make sure how to eliminate mobile snatch-ing crime in Karachi in order to protect the assetsof every citizen.

“If we all can join hands together, then we canbeat this evil. But first, Join Hands”

On PTA’s part, these numbers suggest thatregulator has failed to aware consumers andblocking handsets through IMEI system, that is

in place for years now. It looks that there is ahuge market for stolen handsets, which are beingpurchased and then re-purchased with no hurdleat all. n

Growing incidents of cellphone snatching is quite

alarming; no recoveries arementioned in the report

presented by CPLC that issurprisingly unpleasant. Thisshows that authorities have

failed to guide owners to useIMEI numbers for their cover

of stolen/snatched mobile

The number of people, whose cellphones were either snatched or stolen across thecountry, excluding Karachi, between 2006 and 2011 was over 400,000; while PTA hasblocked so far 623,495 stolen phones under IMEI code


29


Ahorrible fire erupted at the New AurigaComplex on the Main Boulevard Gul-berg, Lahore at around 7:00 pm on Feb-ruary 10 last. The building also houses

the head office of Wateen Telecom, Pakistan’sleading converged communications serviceprovider.

The cause of the fire remains to be ascer-tained, and investigations are pending as towhere and how it started. Wateen employees im-mediately contacted the fire department andRescue services, and while waiting valiantly at-tempted to put out the fire. However, despitetheir best efforts the fire spread quickly to en-gulf the third and fourth floors of the building.Company employees were evacuated in an or-derly manner and the utmost efforts were madeto also help evacuate other tenants of the build-ing. Mr Naeem Zamindar, Wateen CEO, as wellas other members of the management rushed to

the scene to ensure that all employees were safe. Speaking to the media, Mr Zamindar said:

“Our first and foremost concern was to ensurethat everyone present in the building was safe

and accounted for. This not only included Wa-teen employees, but also other tenants in thebuilding. We are thankful that there was no lossof life and that everyone was safely evacuated.”

“Wateen Telecom has in place several net-work redundancies that automatically kick-in inthe event of an emergency. Moreover, the com-pany has alternate arrangements for the cus-tomer care helpline. Our data and enterprisecustomers will not be materially affected as ourdata warehousing and networking facilities arelocated elsewhere. We are therefore confident

that our customers will not suffer loss of qualityand that our services will continue as normal.”

Mr Zamindar added that other telecom oper-ators have rallied to the telecom giant’s support,providing infrastructure and office support toensure that business goes on as usual. AbuDhabi Group has assured that all the requiredsupport will be made available including lever-aging existing infrastructure facilities of theGroup companies.

Speaking about the incident, Wateen Tele-com PR Manager Salman said they had not beenable to establish the cause of the fire but thecompany’s entire staff was rescued unhurt.

He said ll accessories, including comput-

ers/equipment installed at the Wateen Telecom

head office on the two floors (3rd and 4th) had

were reduced to ashes.

He said all Wateen services have been made

operational and customers complaints were

being addressed through the Warid Network

helpline. He said all emergency service agencies

had supported them and helped control the fire

without delay. Salman said that around 25 peo-

ple were present at the head office at the time of

incident as working shift ended at 6 pm. Offi-

cials of Wateen Telecom said that estimated loss

was around Rs 2 billion. n

Horrible fire engulfsWateen TelecomAccessories turn into ashes,estimated loss worth Rs 2 billion


30


CEO Wateen Telecom Mr Zamindar said our first andforemost concern was to ensure that everyone present inthe building was safe and accounted for. This not only in-cluded Wateen employees, but also other tenants in thebuilding. We are thankful that there was no loss of life andthat everyone was safely evacuated

Equal opportunity employer, Warid Tele-com recently participated with thetheme of “Transforming Futures” at theLUMS Mega Career Fair 2012. Warid

Telecom’s recruitment and staffing team pro-vided advice to students about the job applica-tion process, requirements, eligibility criteria aswell as the scope of career in telecom industry.Coaching sessions for job-seekers were also heldon this occasion, providing the graduating stu-

dents with career counseling. An incredible re-sponse was received from the universitygraduates and final year students, who turnedup in large numbers to explore career opportu-nities available with Warid Telecom.

As many as 41 noted organisations, including

Warid Telecom, Allied Bank, KASB Bank, IndusMotors Pakistan, Nestle, Descon Chemicals,PSO, Teach Pakistan and several others set uptheir stalls at the fair. Each company’s repre-sentative was present at its stall to guide stu-dents about available positions in theirorganisations.

The event served as a bridge between indus-try leaders and job seekers, giving the studentsand employers a chance to interact with each

other in a friendly environment, outside the of-fice. The companies’ executives also conductedwritten tests and on-campus interviews to short-list candidates.

The stalls set up by different banks and tele-com companies remained the centre of attention

at the fair, where students were briefed aboutthe procedures, requirements and eligibility cri-teria.

Talking to the media, students said that everyuniversity should take it as its responsibility tohelp and guide its students with regards to theirprofessional careers. However, they added thatit was unfortunate that very few colleges anduniversities across the country held career fairsfor outgoing students.

A management studies student, Alisha, saidthat the government should hold career fairs atthe national level where foreign companiescould be invited to employ talented youth of thecountry. She added that the companies shouldalso offer part-time jobs for students. n

Warid Telecom’s recruitment and staffing team provided advice to students aboutthe job application process, requirements, eligibility criteria as well as the scope ofcareer in telecom industry


31


Flare: Tell us about yourself?

Zeeshan Pervez: After obtaining a degree

from the United States, I returned to Pakistan

in 2003 where I began working with foreign

brands such as LG and Samsung. It was no co-

incidence that whatever brand I worked with

quickly made its way to having the major mar-

ket share in Pakistan. It was during the time of

my involvement with the distribution of LG

phones, when it became obvious, it was our un-

derstanding of the Pakistani market that had

taken us so far, and it was thus time to give the

Pakistani public exactly what they were looking

for. With that in mind, Q Mobile came into ex-

istence.

Flare: How do you see a bright prospect for

QMobile in Pakistani market?

Zeeshan: Pakistani mobile phone market is

very dynamic, volatile and growing rapidly for

the last couple of years. We see more than 20

percent growth YoY and year 2012 prospects

are good as well because of 3G infrastructures

set up rumors by leading service providers in

telecom industry.

As far as the key dynamics are concerned,

it’s a very price sensitive market because of low

income and recent economic issues faced by

our nation which are lingering on for some-

time; consumer is very smart and looking for

phones which can ensure the value for money.

Consumers are looking for competitive prices

with maximum features. Dual SIM phones have

gained a lot of popularity in last one year due

to the diverse tariff plans being offered by dif-

ferent telecom service providers and now al-

most all manufacturers are into this segment,

trying to provide larger portfolio of Dual SIM

handsets.

Flare: How do you encompass your experi-

ence for progress of QMobile?

Zeeshan: It took 10 years for most of the for-

eign brands to realize that economies like Pak-

istan need a simple torchlight more than an

organizer or an alarm clock. There are many

other things could not be incorporated as per

this region’s demands due to the distant and

superficially statistical analysis by them.

As I said earlier that Pakistan market is rap-

idly growing although in low tier price segment

but still there is room for new players and

brands to cater customer needs in a better way.

I always believe that sales is all about satisfy-

ing the customer with good product, price and

after sales service. This core idea, which I call,

is the winning formula makes the backbone of

Q mobile. Almost all foreign brands are work-

ing in Pakistan with local distributors. Q mo-

bile product quality has got immense positive

response from our valued customers while at

the same time we are working very efficiently

as well as effectively in order to communicate

with our customers by utilizing all kinds of

media available. We have also worked hard to

make a proper after sales service and customer

care set up all across Pakistan so that our val-

ued customers must get proper support in case

of any issue faced by them. I believe that we un-

derstand Pakistani customers and their needs

in a much better way than foreign brands; our

consistently growing sales numbers and con-

sumer response towards our brand is a signifi-

cant proof of it.

Flare: How do you justify the charges level

to the QMobile to the general public?

FLARE Panel talks to Mr Zeeshan Pervez Akhtar, CEO QMobile, who says, the Qin QMobile stands for quality, which is the basis of a company that strives to offerthe best quality in everything from their mobile sets to their state-of-the-art serviceand customer care. He strongly believes that it is this no-sacrifice-on-qualityagenda that has taken the company so far; QMobile holds the second largest mar-ket share in Pakistan in an astonishing time period of just two and a half years,with a massive customer base, which is increasing day by day

Q stands for quality


32


Zeeshan: QMobile provides the Pakistani

masses with a chance to upgrade their lifestyle

with the help of advanced technology that they

previously did not have access to, such as dual

SIM features and social networking sites con-

nectivity such as Facebook, Yahoo and MSN.

The distinguishing element of this organization

is its responsiveness to the local aspirations

and demands by devising interfaces and tech-

nologies that suit this region. It is often ob-

served that companies fail to keep up with their

product successions but Q mobile has proved

to be an exception since every product lineup

has managed to produce equally exciting suc-

cessors. The company currently has 32 differ-

ent phones with a dedicated team of more than

400 employees to ensure that the brand prom-

ise is delivered.

Flare: How do you see challenges in the

emerging market of Pakistan?

Zeeshan: Pakistani people are very con-

scious on price and demands maximum fea-

tures at minimum prices. That is why if we

analyze the price segmentation that more than

75% market is less than 4,500 PKR ($50), mak-

ing it a low/mid segments market.

Flare: How do you see the difference be-

tween the demand of developed and developing

market?

Zeeshan:I personally believe that Pakistani

market has a lot of potential for further growth.

If you compare developed markets with devel-

oping markets then in developed markets

mostly operators provide packages while sub-

sidizing the products in order to sell airtime on

contractual basis. But here, in developing coun-

tries we still have to improve tele density, so

cellular service providers are not much inter-

ested in selling devices. That is why market is

open and more intense.

Flare: Kindly give comments on where you

see Q Mobile in particular and technology in

general in next five years?

Zeeshan: QMobile values the customer ex-

perience above everything therefore the com-

plete business model revolves around the same

spirit that ensures compliance with all the pre-

vailing global standards.

At operational level keeping in view the in-

tense competition, I would say we are far more

efficient and responsive as compared to others

foreign/local brand. That is why we have been

able to provide affordable touch, QWERTY and

Wi-Fi enabled phones before than any other

recognized brand by consumers. We have a

state of the art distribution set up in order to

fulfill the demands of our distribution channel

partners.

You must have noticed that we strongly em-

phasize to communicate with customer on reg-

ular basis and do our best to provide them

better products so that they can upgrade their

lifestyle by using more technology oriented

phones in their daily lives.

Our ultimate wish is that in next five years

we become the most loved handset brand in

Pakistan.

Flare: How QMobile takes care of the war-

ranty and after sales services aspect?

Zeeshan:With more than 23 state of the art

service centers and an impressive network of

400 collection points available nationwide, A Q

mobile customer can expect a comprehensive

after sale support and the same intensity of co-

operation which is usually find only in the

point of selling the phone.

Flare: Do you think that the latest QMobile

phones capture the world market?

Zeeshan: I believe in the fact that the best

way to predict future is to create one. The fu-

ture carries a lot of opportunities for the bold

to capture.

The Q in QMobile stands for quality, which

is the basis of a company that strives to offer

the best quality in everything from their mobile

sets to their state-of-the-art service and cus-

tomer care. Being CEO, I strongly believe that

it is this no-sacrifice-on-quality agenda that

has taken the company so far. Moreover, de-

spite our focus on quality and technologically

advanced products, Qmobiles prices currently

range from Rs.1800 to Rs.9000, thus offering

phones, which are comparable to foreign prod-

ucts to people who did not have access to such

high quality sophisticated gadgets.

We have always believed in favorable joint

ventures, Swarovski was a mega success and

soon you will see a few more joint venture ini-

tiatives.

Recent addition of E786 in our product

portfolio is one of the efforts to facilitate our

valued consumers to have a movie camera

phone in a competitive price while providing

the better quality of service.

We are continuously working to bring prod-

ucts as per Pakistani consumer demand and

trying even harder to make it in an affordable

price range

Flare: Are there any hindrances in realizing

the potential of this market?

Zeeshan: QMobile with the grace of

Almighty is a well-recognized and appreciated

brand in Pakistani handset market by our cus-

tomers. In such a short span of time our growth

and brand value has increased tremendously

making us a very strong number 2 market share

position holder. As I said earlier that Pakistan

is a very volatile market but still we are keeping

our pace in terms of growth, quality, product

and service provision to our valued consumers.

Flare: How do you describe your team?

Zeeshan: I find myself very lucky to lead a

dream team of thorough bread professionals

who are focused and committed enough to

make us remain winning brand in every aspect

of the world.

We believe in teamwork, everybody at Q

mobile is working for one common cause to di-

versify and grow the brand.

An impressive 400-team member with

proven track records in their respective fields

ensure working for Q mobile is as good an ex-

perience as using one. n


33

Flare Report Interview

QMobile provides thePakistani masses with achance to upgrade theirlifestyle with the help of

advanced technology thatthey previously did not haveaccess to, such as dual SIM

features and socialnetworking sites connectivitye.g. Facebook, Yahoo and

MSN

To expand the trade between two countriesis good omen but there is need to cooper-ation in main source of telecommunica-tion. Pakistan and India need to

cooperate in various fields especially science andtechnology in order to learn from each other’s ex-periences. The real growth in trade between thetwo countries particularly in the fields of telecomand IT could multiply significantly when Indiaand Pakistan establish and operate their offshoreoffices at each other soils. They will work to con-vince their respective governments to allowtelecommunications access to work across bor-ders.

There is absolutely no question today thattelecommunications has become a major tool fordevelopment especially for developing countrieslike India and Pakistan. Trade without telecom-munication is impossible as it is major tool to con-nect each other.

A multimillion fibre optic had been linked forthe first time with foreign countries through opticfibre via Pakistan. Pakistan is laying optic-fibre toconnect India at Wagah and Chaman and

Tukhum to link Afghanistan. It will offer servicesto various telecommunication services inside andin neighboring countries of Pakistan.

Pakistan and India are considering serioustrading and thinking to open trade routes and thisis very positive step toward better economy of twonations.

There are many people in Pakistan who aretalking negatively about Trade talks between Pak-istan and India because they have monopolisticbusinesses in Pakistani market and they don’twant to lose their position. They can use otherforces to create controversy about India Pakistantrade relations such as Kashmir issue to disruptthe whole India Pakistan Friendship process.

Here are some of benefits that we can get fromindia Pakistan free trade relationships:

Pakistan-India trade could be increased from$1.4 billion to $144 billion if both governmentsact seriously and create a strong framework forFree Trade.

At least businessmen, investors, industrialistsand trades must enjoy the provision of hassle freevisas. They should be exempted from police re-

Pak-India trade bridging ties Telecom to provide new horizons Pakistan is laying optic-fibre to connect India at Wagah and Chaman and Turkhum tolink Afghanistan. Pakistan-India trade could be increased from $1.4 billion to $144billion if both governments act seriously and create a strong framework for Free Trade


34

InsighT Irfan Khan

India is committed to takingits economic and trade

relationship with Pakistan toa new level. I have comewith an open mind and to

achieve substantial progressin our talks says Commerceand Industry Minister Anand

Sharma who led a delegationof 150 members, the first

visit of an Indian trademinister to Pakistan in 30

years in an exercise aimed atramping bilateral trade to $10

billion in three years

porting on arrival; should be granted multiple cityvisas and speedy approval process. Visa policy byboth states to IT entrepreneurs is very strict withtough conditions. Besides, there is no bank ofPakistan in India and Indian in Pakistan to ensure

letter of credits (LCs) facility and exchange ofmoney by the two sides. Therefore, these meas-ures must be resolved by the both government tofacilitate entrepreneurs of their countries.

The largest Indian business delegation toPakistan, consisting of some 150 members andled by Commerce and Industry Minister Anand

Sharma, took part in a series of events, includingan "India Show" in Lahore. Co-hosted by the twoleading Indian business chambers, the eventmarked the first visit of an Indian trade ministerto Pakistan in 30 years in an exercise aimed atramping bilateral trade to $10 billion in threeyears. The delegation includes some top namesfrom India’s corporate world, including RajanBharti Mittal, vice chairman and managing di-rector, Bharti Enterprises; Sunil Kant Munjal,chairman, Hero Corporate Services; K K Modi,chairman, Modi Enterprises; Harsh Pati Singha-nia, managing director, JK Paper; Naresh Goyal,chairman, Jet Airways; Jyotsna Suri, chairper-son and managing director, Bharat Hotels; andArun Nanda, chairman, Mahindra Holidays andResorts.

No doubt, Indian Commerce and IndustryMinister Anand Sharma arrived in Pakistan in aneffort to take down trade barriers, share eco-nomic prosperity and facilitate people-to-people exchange.“India is committed to takingits economic and trade relationship with Pak-istan to a new level. I have come with an openmind and to achieve substantial progress in our

talks. We are working hard on opening the sec-ond gate and an Integrated Customers Post (ICP)at the Wagah-Attari border and hope to finish itby April 30.

“The talks will help us in taking forward theprocess of establishing peace and trade. We willwork towards deepening and diversifying the re-lationship,” the Indian minister told.

Recently, Rawalpindi Chamber of Commerceand Industry organized a seminar in which, Pres-ident Federation of Pakistan of chambers ofcommerce and industry (FPCCI) senator GhulamAli said that Rawalpindi chamber playing pivotalrole for the uplift of the country’s economy andhave panned 10 single country Expos in the year2012 first time in the history of the chambers.Organizing Indo-Pak International Expo 2012(IPEX 2012) is the land mark of the RawalpindiChamber and FPCCI will assist the said Cham-ber in this regard, he stated this while talking tothe media men as a chief guest during thelaunching ceremony of the IPEX at a local hotelhere in Islamabad. President RCCI Jawed AkhtarBhatti, Chairman RCCI standing committee forFairs and Expos Kashif Shabbir, Convener ExpoKhursheed Barlas, former president and othermembers of the chamber were also present onthe occasion.

Ghulam Ali said that business community is

agreed to give MFN status to India but govern-ment must have to provide level playing pitch tothe businessmen community in this regard. Hetermed that RCC1 set an example for other

Chambers of the country to organize such Exposto promote Pakistani products in other countriesof the world.

Speaking on the occasion president RCCI

Jawed Akhtar Bhutti said that four days IPEX-2012 will be kicked off from Feb 23-26 in Ludhi-ana, India. “50 companies and 175 tradedelegation will participate in the Expo and morethan 60 stalls would be set up”, Bhutti said. He

further said that basic purpose behind organiz-ing the Expo is to promote local goods in the In-dian trade market.

Jawed Bhutti said that the said Expo is beingorganized by the joint collaboration ofRawalpindi Chamber and Punjab Haryana Delhi

(PHD) Chamber of commerce and Industry. Hesaid that RCC1 is fully aware of the importanceof promotion of trade activities in the SAARC re-gion. He further said that share of trade volumeamong the SAARC countries is around 5 per centwhich is very low, “Our utmost efforts is to en-hance the business activities with the saidstates”, he added.

President RCCI said that India can be thebiggest market for Pakistani products havingmore than 1 billion population. Despite the mu-tual accord trade volume between Pakistan andIndia is around $2 billion it is need of the hour toaugment the trading activities between twocountries. He said that RCC1 is planned to or-ganize 10 single countries Expos in differentcountries including SAARC region in the year2012 to gear up the exports and strengthen na-tional economy. He demanded of the govern-ment to facilitate the business community in thisregard. At the end he thanked the chief guest andvowed that RCCI will continue its efforts for thebetterment of the country’s economy. n


35


President FPCCI, Senator Ghulam Ali, President RCCI,Jawed Akhtar Bhatti, Mrs. Shireen Arshad Khan and others

sit during Indo-Pak International Expo 2012.

Federal Minister for Commerce Makhdoom Amin Faheemand Indian Commerce Minister Anand Sharma waving hands

toward the media persons at Baab-e-Azadi.

Visitors are seen on the showroom floor during the IndianExpo-Trade fair in Lahore.

Women members of Indian delegation arrive at Wahga Border. Federal Minister for Commerce Makhdoom Amin Faheempresents sweets to Indian Commerce Minister Anand Sharma

at Baab-e-Azadi.

The Indian Supreme Court cancelled the122 telecom licences that jailed formertelecom minister A Raja had issued toeight companies in 2008 (Telenor among

them), calling the allocation illegal, wholly arbi-trary, capricious and contrary to public interest.

By cancelling licences issued by the UPA gov-ernment to telecommunications companies in2008, the Supreme Court has ruled against dis-cretion in the allotment of natural resources likeradio frequencies. This is in contrast to the view ofthis government and that of its predecessor, theNDA, that big upfront costs like spectrum fees,which must be passed on to customers, don't servethe larger goal of universal telecom access in India.So, radio frequencies need to be farmed out cheap.The court, however, finds the method used by thethen telecom minister A Raja to distribute permitstied to bundles of spectrum unacceptable. This is anoteworthy development in Indian policy-making.But while this should lead to a new transparency inpolicy-making, the question is whether such a de-cision will inhibit making policy at all. In the coun-try's current industrial and economic atmosphere,pushing the pause button just to avoid future ju-dicial reproach can be debilitating.

The country's learning curve in telecom regu-lation has been steep: it has taken them 15 yearsto realise that the most efficient way to allot radiofrequency, as with any other finite natural re-source, is through open bidding. Fortunately, thegovernment has, on its own, come to the sameconclusion as the courts. Spectrum auctions arethe way forward in a country that has more than900 million cellphone subscribers and among thecheapest call charges in the world. From here on,calls are going to cost more and the number of new

customers signing up will slow down from the eye-popping 20 million a month. The older telecomcompanies, which among them share 90 percentof the market, will get a chance to stop the insaneprice war the government's free-for-all policy hadset off. The telecom watchdog reckons not morethat 5 percent of India's mobile subscribers havesigned up with the new players. When the govern-ment reverts with a new set of rules, it shouldsqueeze out the spectrum that was traded for eq-uity or is currently being hoarded.

These rules will have to address the genuinegrievance of the foreign partners of new telecomcompanies that paid top dollar to get into one ofthe hottest markets in the world.

The lower courts will now go into fixing ac-countability within the government for unduefavours in the `first come-first served' licences of2008 while investigators are to hand over their ev-idence to an independent anti-corruption cell. TheUPA argues the decision was isolated to Mr Raja,who, along with his predecessor Dayanidhi Maran,engineered the necessary concentration of powersin the telecom ministry that allowed them to exer-cise wide discretion in the grant of licences. On hispart, Mr Raja has argued that all decisions he tookhad kept the entire Cabinet in the loop. The trialcourt could ask P Chidambaram to explain why asfinance minister in 2008 he did not insist thatspectrum be auctioned to start-up telecom com-panies, establish whether the government hasbeen able to limit its embarrassment.

The Supreme Court's judgment will push up

companies' costs, reduce competition and may

nudge firms to raise tariffs to maintain profit mar-

gins, experts said. “We are looking at an increase

in tariff by about 30 percent in the next one year,“

CEO of an existing telecom service provider said.

“We were not able to reduce tariff earlier as the

market was hyper competitive and we were offer-

ing tariff on the basis of what the competition is

offering and not on the basis of our business

India has 926.53 million subscribers in the net; 46.32 million subscribers likely to beaffected by Supreme Court verdict; 30 percent tariff hike expected; it is consideredthe worst nightmare in the history of Indian telecom sector and world; Oppositionwants PM, FM to step down, while PM Singh yet to break silence


36


plans.“ Currently, there are about 1012 operators

providing services in a circle, making India one of

the most competitive markets in the world. As a

result, prices of telecom services in India are one

of the lowest in the world. The 2G telecom spec-

trum scam is arguably the most high-profile cor-

ruption case in Indian history ¬ valued at as much

as R1,76,000 crore by the Comptroller and Auditor

General (CAG) ¬ in which former cabinet minis-

ter A Raja and former telecom secretary S Behura

are behind bars in Delhi's Tihar jail. What's the al-

legation department of telecom (DoT), headed by

Raja, it has been alleged, decided on who should

be given the licences much before the bids had

come, exploiting loopholes in the existing first-

come-first-served (FCFS) policy. Soon after the SC

cancelled the 122 licences, the BJP launched a

stinging attack on the government with party pres-

ident Nitin Gadkari demanding PM Manmohan

Singh's resignation on moral grounds.In Gujarat, CM Narendra Modi said the Centre

had lost the right to stay in office. He charged thatthe Centre was trying to `save' then finance min-ister P Chidambaram, who, the BJP claims, wasequally responsible as then telecom minister ARaja of the DMK.

Telecom minister Kapil Sibal blamed the NDAregime for the current mess in the allotment of 2Gspectrum even as the UPA government and Con-gress closed ranks to defend embattled home min-ister P Chidambaram on the issue.

Sibal said the Supreme Court had found faultwith the firstcome-first-served policy formulatedby the BJP-led NDA government. “We followed it.The court found the policy discriminatory, not thefact that we followed it, he said.

Sibal said the court verdict was consistent withthe UPA government's policy. “I have stated ear-lier that we will de-link licence from the spec-

trum,“ he said and assured that the governmentwould put fresh rules in place within four monthsthe deadline set by the apex court to set the ballrolling on the way forward on spectrum sale. Onits part, the Congress dismissed as “illogical andridiculous“ the BJP's claim that the “severe indict-ment“ of the UPA government by the apex courtwas “collective responsibility“ of the ruling coali-tion, and hence Chidambaram should resign.

Uninor, a joint venture between Norway-basedTelenor group and Unitech Ltd, will participatesin the bids for 2G spectrum, even as the companyplans to keep legal options open to contest

Supreme Court judgment that cancelled 122 li-cences. However, the company may not bid for allthe circles if the reserve prices are very high. “Inprinciple we will go for auction but I am not sayingthat whether we will win everything,“ said Sigve

Brekke, managing director, Uninor. “So, the op-tion of exit cannot be ruled out.” The companywould finalise its strategy after looking at the baseprice and the reserve price for the 2G spectrum,said Brekke.

The Supreme Court cancelled licences of all thenew GSM service providers including Uninor, inwhich Telenor has more than 67 percent stake.The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)has already started the consultation process forformulating recommendations for awarding newlicences. The bidding should be limited between

new service providers and incumbent operatorsshould not be allowed to participate in the biddingprocess, said Brekke.

Telenor owns 67.25 percent in Unitech Wire-less, while Unitech owns the rest. Telenor posted asharp profit fall for 2011 after taking a charge of4.2 billion kroner ($720 million) on its Indian unitafter the Supreme Court cancelled 122 licences.Net profit in 2011 fell 44.6 percent from the level7.9 billion kroner in large part due to complica-tions from its majority stake in Uninor.

We are working to protect our investment in allpossible manners, and will consider every optionprior to any further investments, said John

Fredrik. We expect Indian authorities to conduct aswift and fair process.

Facing adverse market reactions and underdiplomatic pressure in the wake of the recent can-cellation of the 122 second generation (2G) Spec-trum licences by the Supreme Court, PrimeMinister Manmohan Singh held a crucial meetingwith senior Cabinet colleagues about its overallimpact on the telecom sector and the way forward.

The meeting held at the Prime Minister’s resi-dence was attended by Finance Minister PranabMukherjee, Home Minister P Chidambaram, Tele-com Minister Kapil Sibal and Law Minister SalmanKhurshid. Attorney General GE Vahanvati andTelecom Secretary R Chandrashekhar were alsopresent.

The meeting assumes greater importance in thewake of intense diplomatic pressure on the govern-ment especially from Norway and Russia. The Nor-wegian and Russian Governments have majorstakes in their local telecom firms that have, in turn,picked up majority stakes in joint venture partner-ships in the affected telecom firms. The two gov-ernments hold majority stakes in Telenor andSistema, respectively, which have partnered withUnitech and Shyam Telecom for the Uninor andMTS telecom brands operating.

With Telenor having invested over Rs 14,000crore in the Indian operations here, the NorwegianGovernment had sent its Minister for IT, Govern-ment Administration, Reform and Church AffairsRigmor Aasrud for a meeting with Kapil Sibal.

Sistema claims to have also invested over Rs12,000 crore and was seeking protection from theIndian Government for its investments.

Reports suggested that in the wake of all thepressure and with the affected companies also look-ing to file a review petition in the Supreme Court,the Prime Minister also asked for the Attorney Gen-eral's opinion.

The Telecom Secretary apprised the Prime Min-ister and the other ministers present about the finerpoints of the judgment and its impact on the tele-com sector, keeping in mind the possibility of FDIflow getting affected. "Ultimately, all the mattershave to go to the Cabinet so the government has tobe informed before that in order to take a decision,"he added. According to the ministry, auctions, onthe other hand, can favour large firms with deeppockets, leading to monopolies.

On the land issue, the government is likely toadopt a competitive bidding or e-auctions method-ology, especially for commercial and institutionalproperties. n


37


The older telecomcompanies share 90 percentof the market; not more than5 percent of India's mobilesubscribers have signed up

with the new players; Telenorowns 67.25 percent stake inUninor, Telenor net profit fell

44.6 percent; Telenorinvested Rs 14,000 crore inUninor; Telenor has to facethe music as it entered into

Indian telecom marketunlawful

From delivering newspapers to spearhead-ing a multi-million dollar software com-pany — Cvent’s CEO and founder ReggieAggarwal attributes his success to his team

What time do you wake up every day? Whattime do you sleep?

Reggie Aggarwal: I start my day at 7:30 am andsleep around midnight. I never leave home with-out …Kissing my wife

How do you commute to office? How long is thecommute?

Reggie: I drive to work and it is a 30- minutecommute on average.

How many hours a week do you work?Reggie: I work about 55-60 hours a weekWhat is the first thing you do on reaching of-

fice?Reggie: Check my emailsWhat do you like the most about your job?Reggie: The people and their energy levelsWhat is the one thing you like least about your

job?Reggie: Dealing with unmotivated peopleWhat is the secret of your success?Reggie: Building a great team. The DNA of a

company is its people – so we invest heavily inhuman capital. So hire good people, train them andthen get out of the way

What do you have for breakfast?Reggie: I start my day with cereal/oatmeal and

some fruitWhat would you like to change about your-

self/your life?Reggie: I’d like to lead a healthier lifestyle, but

my constant travelling makes it challenging some-times

How often do you exercise?Reggie: When I’m in the US, I work out a cou-

ple of times a week; when I’m in India, I work outfour to five times in a week – it’s hard to make anexcuse when the gym is in your hotel.

What exercise do you do?Reggie: Running and weightsHow do you relax? Any hobbies?Reggie: Who has time for hobbies when you

have a thriving business and a young family?Your favorite book?Reggie: The Pillars of the Earth by Ken FollettYour favourite film?Reggie: My favourite film is Lord of the Rings

TrilogyWhen and where did you last go on holiday?Reggie: Mexico in December 2011One gadget you cannot live without?Reggie: My BlackBerryWhat makes you happy?Reggie: Seeing my daughter laughWhat is the most important lesson that life has

taught you?Reggie: Persistency and consistency do pay off

– I promiseWhat was your first job and salary?Reggie: I had my first job when I was 12, deliv-

ering newspapersAt what age did you become CEO?Reggie: At 29Which living person do you admire?Reggie: It’s hard to pick one person because so

many people have had a positive influence on my

life. I admire my professors and mentorsWhat job would you rather be doing?Reggie: I love being an entrepreneur, but if I

had to choose another profession, I’d run an NGO.I like that their mission is to make an impactrather than just to make money

What characteristic/behaviour do you dislikemost in others?

Reggie: People who are unkind to othersWhere do you see yourself in five years?Reggie: Tripling Cvent’s revenues and dedi-

cating a substantial amount of my personal timeto NGOs

What is your biggest strength?Reggie: The passion that I show towards the

things that I believe in, and my ability to ignitepassion in others

What is your biggest weakness?Reggie: Being impatient. I struggle with that

reality that not everyone thinks like an entrepre-neur

At what age do you hope to retire?Reggie: I have too many exciting things going

on right now to even think about retirement!What is your most cherished possession?Reggie: My family. Although it isn’t really a

possession, it’s definitely my most cherishedblessing.

Courtesy: Hindustan Times

Cvent was voted as one ofthe ‘50 Best Places to Workin’ Washington DC for three

years in a row by theWashington BusinessJournal. Cvent was

honoured for the 2010Management Team of the

Year by the AmericanBusiness Awards

Reggie Aggarwal has led Cvent from a two-person startup to a 900-person softwarecompany – its technology has helped manage 350,000 events in 50 countries. In July 2011,the company received a $136 million investment-which, according to the Wall Street Journal,is the biggest US software funding deal since 2007 and the largest in the history of the eventstechnology industry. With 500 employees in Gurgaon, India, 400 in Washington, DC, and 500crore worth of turnover, Cvent has been thriving under Reggie’s leadership


38


Ayoung receptionist and a security guard

were killed and three others were

wounded when armed men assaulted a

Telenor franchise near the Matric

Board Office in North Nazimabad.

It is pertinent to mention that this was the

4th terrorist attack on franchises of telecommu-

nication companies. Since December 2011, two

franchises, of Telenor and Mobilink each, have

been attacked in the same manner. A regional

sales officer at Warid was shot dead at one of the

company’s franchise in Mehmoodabad for what

the police say was putting up a resistance to a

robbery.

Pakistan is developing country and would

not survive without foreign direct investments

(FDIs). Some outlaws do not want to Pakistan

growing and progress in the region. What is mo-

tive behind the attacks on the cellular fran-

chises?

It is completely failure of City Police Depart-

ment including the Government of Sind. This is

test time to catch the killers and expose whose

instructions they are killing innocent people and

hanged them in same place.

During the operation, Crime Investigation

Department killed and arrested the men they

said were responsible for the attacks, they had

also warned that there might be more. The men

they had nabbed and killed in an alleged en-

counter near Dalmia were from the Tehreek-i-

Taliban Pakistan and were targeting the

franchises to compel the telecom companies to

pay extortion.

At around 12:52pm, two armed men in shal-

war kameez, entered the Telenor outlet and

opened fire at the staffers before escaping within

five minutes. As a result, Faiza, 25, security

guard Mazhar Butt, salesman Mansoor, 37, and

two customers, Waseem, 29, and Imtiaz, 26,

were wounded. They were rushed to hospital

where doctors pronounced Faiza and Mazhar

dead and the two others as critical.

“Apparently, this is part of the series of at-

tacks on franchises whose purpose is extortion,”

said District West DIG Imran Yaqoob Minhas.

“We solved the previous two cases in which a

Taliban member was killed and another was ar-

rested. Perhaps these guys were their buddies.”

The North Nazimabad police said that one of

the attackers was also injured when his pistol

accidentally went off. However, his accomplices

managed to take him away in a car. The attack-

ers were six in number and they were driving a

Hi-roof van.

Police have obtained video footage of the in-

cident in which three of the attackers can bee

seen entering the franchise. All of them were

wearing Shalwar Kameez. The franchise man-

ager Shahzad luckily escaped the attack as he

was in the washroom.

Police were coordinating with the Citizens-

Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) to develop the

sketches of the suspects. It was the second such

attack on a Telenor office in the city. On De-

cember 23 last year, four militants had barged

into the franchise of the same cellular firm in the

Shadman area and killed two of its employees.

The attackers had also set the premises on fire

before escaping. n

Telenor comes under attack inKarachi It is pertinent to mention that this was the 4th terrorist

attack on franchises of telecommunication companies,

since December 2011


39


DWP Group is a leading business house

with core activities in technology, lo-

gistics and consumer electronics. With

over many years of experience, DWP

Technologies Division is a leading provider of

end-to-end IT services. DWP Tech Division

serves large enterprises, corporate, small &

medium companies and the home-users. Now

DWP Group has lineup a new series of LCD LED

and 3D TV in the local market of Pakistan with

their own brand named EcoStar. EcoStar LCDs

are the best and most affordable television sets

with unmatched quality and durability. EcoStar

televisions come with a range of exciting fea-

tures and spectacular picture quality makes it a

wonderful medium to watch all you desire.

EcoStar has covered the market gap with in

little time and begins to rise up as an affordable

and durable brand name with an exciting range

and feature. EcoStar is giving the best prices

with the best services allover Pakistan. EcoStar

is starting from as 19 inches to large as 55 inches

LCD TV to the costumer. Their unique panel and

modern designs with low energy consumption

catered the customer and gave range of Rs

16,000 up to Rs 65,000; their all models can be

seen and examined at Eco Star out lets and local

dealers.

Eco Star discovers the real 3D experience

with breathtaking picture and stunning reality.

Eco Star technology brings a world of excite-

ment and entertainment in a whole new dimen-

sion.

EcoStar CX- 42L 520 -3D Series are the best

and most affordable television sets with un-

matched quality and durability. EcoStar televi-

sions come with a range of exciting features and

spectacular picture quality makes it a wonderful

medium to watch all you desire.

Key Features

• Full HD

• Flicker Free, No Eye Stress

• Advance FPR 3D

• Real Color Engine

• Digital Comb Filter

• Energy Saving

• DynaCon

• Wide Viewing Angle

• Image Refinery

• Motion Engine

• Reflecto Con

• Nature View

• 3D Content Thru USB

• HDMI

• IPS ( In Plane Switching)

HD 1080: 1080p images that bring out the

originality of natural beauty on your screen. Due

to the increased scanning lines and double the

resolution as compared to standard HD LCDs,

the Full HD 1080p shows the world truly pic-

turesque. The rich texture of Full HD images

makes picture so clear that it almost takes you

there.

Image refinery: The advanced engine by

EcoStar comes with an ability to produce not

only deeper black and white contrast but also

enhance the color spectrums of the images. It

enables motion engine to work efficiently with

1080p resulting into the ultimate output of col-

ors and smooth picture of your EcoStar LCD TV.

Motion engine: EcoSt a r s Motion Engine

technology helps you watch a seemless picture

without any judder or blur effect. Making use of

3 different elements i.e. panel, video processing

and backlit technology, the Motion Engine de-

termines the clarity of motion. You will have

better motion quality and clarity to watch a

whole new proportion of picture definition and

a high picture quality regardless of how fast the

image moves.

REflecto Con: EcoStar LCDs come with

ReflectoCon or anti-reflection screen panel that

efficiently absorbs external light and removes

reflection from your screen to the best. The Re-

flecto-Con provides you with more rich, natu-

ral, deeper and dynamic details of the picture

for a colorful and comfortable viewing experi-

ence.

Nature view: See colors as they were

meant to be seen with EcoStar Natural View i.e.

color enhancement technologyin its LCD televi-

sions. The Natural View is fine-tuned to show

every color of the picture in RGB spectrum that

makes every image look closest to the natural

DynaCon: DynaCon or Dynamic Contrast

Control technology offered by EcoStar LCDs

provides an enormous cinematic experience to

the viewers. The special LCD backlight adjust-

ment delivers a dynamic depth of color and

deeper details that result in intense expression

of every shade and hue of color you see on your

screen.

HDMI: EcoStar Television are equipped

with High Definition Multimedia Interface

(HDMI) inputs providing hugely fast transfer

speeds converting your LCD into your personal

high speed multi-media hub. n

EcoStar is giving the bestprices with the best servicesallover Pakistan. EcoStar isstarting from as 19 inches tolarge as 55 inches LCD TV to

the costumer. Their uniquepanel and modern designs with

low energy consumptioncatered the customer and gave

range of Rs 16,000 up to Rs65,000; their all models can beseen and examined at EcoStar

outlets and local dealers

Now DWP Group has lineup a new series of LCD LED and 3D TV in the local marketof Pakistan with their own brand named EcoStar. EcoStar LCDs are the best and mostaffordable television sets with unmatched quality and durability


40

InsighT Farooq Malik

Nobody knows for sure how much elec-tronic waste is dumped in Pakistan,but it’s easily in the thousands of tonsevery year. Some of it is generated in-

ternally but most is imported from developedcountries. It’s not legal under the Basel Conven-tion – to which Pakistan is a party – to import E-waste into the country, and legislation calls forproper handling of what does exist to minimizelead, cadmium, beryllium, and brominatesflame retardant contamination, but these lawsare not well enforced.

• Electrical Waste - switches, relays, con-nectors, and related scrap material;

• Telecommunication Waste - mobilephones, telephones, telephone exchanges, wire-less equipment cables, and related scrap mate-rial;

• Electronic Waste - metal waste, printedcircuit boards, e-equipment and machinery, IC,sockets, and connectors;

• Cable Waste - PVC, pre-insulated cop-per, and aluminum cable waste;

• Chemical Waste – chemical sludge andresidue.

Regulatory environmentThe National Environment Policy of 2005

and the Import Policy Order 2009 are designedto regulate how E-waste is managed in Pakistan,but informal recycling centers continue to pro-liferate. Often teenagers are among those whoseparate out the various materials that can be

re-used, which can be dangerous. Dangers varydepending on the nature of waste being handled.For example, the radioactive source in smokealarms, Americium, is a known carcinogenic.Sulphur in batteries can cause liver damage, kid-ney damage, heart damage, eye and throat irri-tation.

E-waste is shipped to Pakistan, India, China,and many African countries because labor ischeap and environmental standards are lax,making it easier to avoid costly dismantling pro-cedures mandated by laws in developed coun-tries. Lacking such strong environmentaloversight, informal recycling centers in Pakistanoften throw their E-waste onto a massive bon-fire in order to melt down plastics and exposevaluable metals that can then be re-used.

This releases harmful pollutants into the at-mosphere, including carbon dioxide, carbonmonoxide, and black soot, all of which exacer-bate respiratory problems. Pakistan lacks formalmechanisms to manage E-waste at the nationallevel and that very little funding has been ap-plied to research and development of suitablerecycling technologies. The country lacks an in-ventory of e-waste and that the government hasnot paid sufficient attention to this issue.

Incentives for changeAchim Steiner, Executive Director of UNEP

warns of problems that will arise if e-waste re-cycling is “left to the vagaries of the informalsector,” according to an article in Science Daily.He adds that establishing proper recycling facil-ities can have enormous benefits.

In addition to curbing health problems,boosting developing country e-waste recyclingrates can have the potential to generate decentemployment, cut greenhouse gas emissions andrecover a wide range of valuable metals includ-

ing silver, gold, palladium, copper and indium— by acting now and planning forward manycountries can turn an e-challenge into an e-op-portunity. The Basel Action Network is one ofthe few international organizations committedto rooting out injustices associated with theglobal trade of E-waste. Despite the absence of

national mechanisms, Nokia and Unilever bothlaunched Take Back programs whereby cus-tomers are invited to return any brand of phonein exchange for a gift hamper. Media amongother organizations that have teamed up tomake this venture a success.

Pakistan can introduce initiatives for collec-tion and transportation of E-waste under thetake back system;

Public private partnership for the develop-ment of E-waste Recycling facilities;

Create public awareness for benefits of E-

waste; Investment opportunity for financing inE-waste management under the take-back sys-tem.

The bottom lineAlthough it is true that E-waste in Pakistan

is mounting, each new heap also represents apile of opportunities. Those thousands of tonsof dumped computers and phones contain valu-able raw materials that can be re-used, obviat-ing the need for additional mining. And if donesafely, formal recycling facilities can offerscores of job opportunities. A successful recy-cling program starts with attractive incentives,which in turns greater government participa-tion.

However, the good news is that all mobilephone companies have agreed to setup collect-ing centres for unusable phones, some havingalready set up collecting facilities. Like the TVand the mobile phone, the computer has be-come a part of our lives; a fixture in our officesand increasingly in our homes today. A com-puter also has a short lifespan and can becomeobsolete with the invention of new faster mod-els becoming e-waste quickly.

While the international treaty on hazardouswaste called the Basel Convention on the Con-trol of Transboundary Movements of Haz-ardous Wastes and their Disposal regulatese-waste disposal, it has however, become apractice for developed countries to send their e-waste to developing countries. Sri Lanka is asignatory of the Basel treaty and hence it is ille-gal to send any e-waste to Sri Lanka without de-claring it. But there are other means by whichdeveloped nations transfer their e-waste tocountries like Sri Lanka, for example under theguise of humanitarian reasons, that even oldtechnology can still help. n

The good news is that allmobile phone companies

have agreed to setupcollecting centres for

unusable phones, somehaving already set upcollecting facilities. A

computer also has a shortlifespan and can become

obsolete with the invention ofnew faster models becoming

e-waste quickly

The radioactive source in smoke alarms, Americium, is a known carcinogenic. Sulphur in

batteries can cause liver damage, kidney damage, heart damage, eye and throat irritation


41

Prof Hafiz UImair Munwar InsighT

Telenor Pakistan has filed separate law-suits against Nokia Siemens Networkand Huawei Pakistan. According to thedetails the matter was moved to court for

arbitration over a dispute in an agreement be-tween Huawei Pakistan and Telenor Pakistan.

According to the agreement, Huawei was sup-posed to offer managed network services to Te-lenor Pakistan for three years, starting April2011, this was the same agreement under whichHuawei had absorbed Telenor Pakistan’s wholedepartment for Network Security and Mainte-nance.

Aamer Izhar Ul Haq, Vice President Corpo-rate Affairs & Security at Telenor Pakistan con-firmed that Telenor is involved in separate legalproceedings with the Nokia Siemens Networkand Huawei without mentioning the details. “Asthe matter is sub-judice, we are unable to com-ment any further on the subject”, he added.

It merits mentioning here that Telenor Pak-istan recently awarded ZTE a countrywide end-to-end network swap contract valuing $850million to beat NSN and Huawei’s price. TelenorPakistan has reportedly decided in principle toget ZTE’s services for replacing its entire accessand core network infrastructure throughout thecountry. After this contract ZTE will become solevendor for Telenor Pakistan to setup, maintainand run its entire network, which will include 3Grollout in coming years.

NSN after losing Telenor’s contract is leftwith no other work in the country except forminor chunk in PTCL and Mobilink. It had al-ready started lay-offs, but loss of Telenor projectmight result into possible closure of NSN opera-tions in Pakistan, but nothing can be said withcertainty at this point of time.

Earlier Telenor Pakistan has reportedlyagreed to award 3G network deployment con-tract to NSN (Nokia Siemens Networks) in Pak-istan, disclosed sources in NSN.

Huawei has inked a contract with TelenorGroup to supply 1.2 million mobile broadbandmodems over the coming 12 months for Te-lenor’s 13 operating companies.

But, if we glanced over the history and activ-ities of Telenor, we have reached to a certainpoint that, Telenor has gone through the limitsand now has the phobia of lawsuits of arbitra-tion. Recently it has sued VimpelCom but now itbought VimpelCom shares and withdrawn its ar-bitration suit which it had filed against Vimpel-Com.

Telenor has purchased 234,000,000 Vimpel-Com preferred shares from Weather Invest-ments, for $374,400,000, thereby increasingTelenor's voting share in VimpelCom Ltd. to36.36 percent, subject to adjustment arisingunder certain put and call arrangements.Weather is the investment vehicle through whichMr. Naguib Sawiris and his family hold their in-terests in VimpelCom Ltd.

In connection with the transaction, Telenorhas withdrawn all its claims against AltimoHoldings & Investments Ltd., Altimo CooperatiefU.A. and VimpelCom Ltd. in the pending arbi-tration proceeding, and will work to expand theVimpelCom Board to eleven members. Telenor'swithdrawal of its claims will result in the termi-nation of the VimpelCom shareholders agree-ment. This is not yet done, Telenor issued anotice to its Indian strategic partner UnitechLimited, that it will seek indemnity and com-pensation following the cancellation of Uninor's22 licenses by the Supreme Court of India.

The Supreme Court of India passed an orderto revoke 122 licenses issued to all operators onand from January 10, 2008. This included all li-censes issued to Uninor.

Telenor Group holds Unitech Ltd. liable forthe breach of warranties related to the cancella-tion of the licenses - seeking compensation forall investment, guarantees and damages causedby the Supreme Court Order. Telenor Group alsomakes an indemnity claim against Unitech forthe failure to obtain spectrum in the strategicallycritical Delhi circle. Telenor Group will considerevery option available to secure the continuedsuccessful development of its mobile services inthe country. It is Telenor Group's position thatthe strategic partnership with Unitech Limiteddoes not have a future, and it therefore will startthe process of looking for a new Indian partner.

Telenor Group has invested INR 61 billion(NOK 8.9 billion) for 67.25 percent ownership inUninor, and additionally is also fully guarantee-ing for INR 80 billion (NOK 8.1 billion) of short-term debt.

Now, Telenor looks like a mad beast, whichhas some viral infection, around the globe, wher-ever it has some business or partners, it hassome problems and love to go to court of lawagainst everyone. But, it will not give it any boostbut breakdown. n

It merits mentioning here thatTelenor Pakistan recently

awarded ZTE a countrywideend-to-end network swap

contract valuing $850 millionto beat NSN and Huawei’sprice. Telenor Pakistan has

reportedly decided inprinciple to get ZTE’s

services for replacing itsentire access and corenetwork infrastructurethroughout the country

If we glanced over the history and activities of Telenor, we have reached to a certainpoint that, Telenor has gone through the limits and now has the phobia of lawsuits ofarbitration; it has problems with Huawei, NSN, VimpelCom and Unitech


42


Samsung is a South Korean multinational

conglomerate corporation and expand-

ing its business throughout the world

but in Pakistan, Samsung fails to deliver

to the customers. The hapless management

team of Samsung in Pakistan seems like imma-

ture adults (non-professionals).

There are many reasons behind the deceler-

ation of Samsung products especially mobile

phone unit, the main reason is non-serious at-

titude of the management and strategy. The

Samsung management in Pakistan lacks market

knowledge and hence failed to fulfil customers’

demands which leading Samsung into complete

loss.

Another reason for the failure of Samsung in

Pakistan is the non-professional attitude with

reverend clients. The service support from Sam-

sung is really pathetic. Why Samsung’s Pak-

istani management is not interested to provide

good service and support to their valued cus-

tomers?

Samsung needs perfect professional team as

its experienced and dedicated team left the

company due to non-professional attitude of

other colleagues, now they are boosting the

businesses of their respective organisations

which they had joined.

At the present, Samsung have totally non-

professional and non-serious team who leading

Samsung into complete collapse. The company

have changed main distributors in Pakistan

within no time. If Samsung wants to flourish in

Pakistan, then it has to change its current man-

agement team, who are creating obstacles in

Samsung progress.

Samsung needs to open its distributing units

in major cities across Pakistan to grab the most

lucrative and expanding market of Pakistan.

Today, Nokia is the largest shareholder, while

QMobile snatch the 2nd spot in mere two and a

half years.

If Samsung wants to grab the No.1 spot, it

has to beat Nokia and QMobile, and to beat

them, Samsung needs devoted team, which it

hasn’t yet. Samsung Company does not possess

good image in different advertising and PR

agencies. Its PR and Media Department does

not have the required skills and decision mak-

ing power for marketing and also lacking in

business expanding strategies. Planning and ex-

ecution never ever glanced over them. They

need proper trained team, who know the art of

media campaigns to introduce new products in

the market. Though Samsung faces many chal-

lenges worldwide as Samsung is feeling the heat

over an Israeli commercial, which features a

Galaxy Tab 750 involved in the destruction of

Iran's nuclear facility. The ad shows four char-

acters from the popular Israeli TV series, Asfur.

Disguised as women, the quartet bumps into an

undercover Mossad agent, and accidently blows

up Iran's nuclear facility. Needless to say, nei-

ther Ali Khamenei nor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

was amused.

I would say that it reflects a very bad taste

and speaks volume about the incompetency of

authorities at Samsung, who approved this kind

of discriminatory ads.

Samsung faces an investigation by European

competition authorities over allegations it

abused patents on standard smartphone tech-

nology to attack Apple.

The investigation marks a major regulatory

intervention in Samsung’s bitter patent dispute

with Apple, which is ongoing in courts in the

United States, Germany and Australia, among

other jurisdictions. It gives the impression that

Samsung has patents phobia. n

Today, Nokia is the largest shareholder, while QMobilesnatch the 2nd spot in mere two and a half years. If

Samsung wants to grab the No.1 spot, it has to beat Nokiaand QMobile, and to beat them, Samsung needs devotedteam, which it hasn’t yet; its PR and Media Departmentdoes not have the required skills and decision making

power for marketing and also lacking in businessexpanding strategies

The Samsung management in Pakistan lacks market knowledge and hence failed tofulfil customers’ demands which leading Samsung into complete loss. Another reasonfor the failure of Samsung in Pakistan is the non-professional attitude with reverendclients. The service support from Samsung is really pathetic


44


International Data Corporation (IDC) has re-leased the figures for worldwide mobile ship-ments. Reportedly, a staggering 1546 millionphones were shipped last year. Out of around

120 vendors in the list though, only five managed toleave their mark.

Nokia continues to lead the mobile space by mov-ing 417.1 million devices, and accounting for 27 per-cent of the total market. Samsung notched up 329.4million units to grab 21.3percent of the market share.Interestingly, Apple managed to grab the third spotby pushing LG down to fourth place. Consideringthat Apple only ships high-end phones, the fact thatit has managed to find a place in a list that includeslow-end phones as well is impressive. On the otherhand, LG was the biggest loser with a whopping25percent decline in sales. Surprisingly, the relativelyobscure Chinese manufacturer ZTE has emerged asthe worlds fifth biggest manufacturer.

Other big names such as Sony Ericsson and Mo-torola couldn't even make it to the top five. Thisprobably means that abandoning their mass-marketphones to focus on Android devices wasn't really asmart move. The worldwide mobile phone marketgrew 6.1percent year over year in the fourth quarterof 2011 (4Q11), as the feature phone market declinedfaster than anticipated, dragging market growthdown to its lowest point in over two years. Accordingto the International Data Corporation (IDC) World-wide Mobile Phone Tracker, vendors shipped 427.4million units in 4Q11 compared to 402.8 millionunits in the fourth quarter of 2010. The 6.1percentyear-over-year growth was higher than IDC's fore-cast of 4.4percent for the quarter, but weaker thanthe 9.3percent growth in 3Q11.

"The mobile phone market exhibited unusuallylow growth last quarter, which shows it is not im-mune to weaker macroeconomic conditions world-wide," said Kevin Restivo, senior research analystwith IDC's Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker. "Theintroduction of high-growth products such as theiPhone 4S, which shipped in the fourth quarter, bol-stered smartphone growth. Yet overall marketgrowth fell to its lowest point since 3Q09 when theglobal economic recession was in full bloom."

While smartphones continue to grow in popular-ity, feature phones still comprise the majority of allmobile phone shipments. "Feature phones ac-counted for a majority of shipments from four of thefive market leaders during the quarter," said RamonLlamas, senior researchanalyst with IDC's MobilePhone Technology andTrends team. "Eventhough their proportion iseroding, feature phonesmaintain their appeal onthe basis of price and easeof use.

"At the same time,feature phones are fight-ing to maintain their mar-ket share," added Llamas."To meet the challenge,feature phones are be-coming more like smartphones, incorporating mo-bile Internet and third-party applications. While thismay not stem the smartphone tide, it should slowdown the rate at which smartphones are selectedover feature phones."

Nokia finished the year exactly where it began: asthe undisputed leader of total mobile phone ship-ments. The company took another step in its storiedtransition, having officially launched its first Win-dows Phone-powered Lumia smartphones and itsAsha line of smartphone-like feature phones. While

both have received positive response from the mar-ket, Nokia has been quick to adjust its retail experi-ence, customer engagement, and hardware bug fixes.At the same time, the increased focus on the Lumia,combined with changing market conditions in keymarkets, has prompted Nokia to change its strategyon Symbian smartphones. Fewer Symbian deviceswill be sold in 2012. Still, Nokia's broad distributionaround the world and manufacturing capabilitiesmake it a serious contender to maintain its leader-ship position.

Samsung finished the quarter and the year reach-ing new record levels: breaking the 90 million unitmark for the first time in a single quarter and break-ing the 300 million mark for the first time in a singleyear. Leading the charge for Samsung was its grow-ing smartphone volumes, boosted by the release ofseveral high-end devices (Galaxy S II, Galaxy Note,Galaxy Nexus), mass market models (Galaxy Ace,and Galaxy Y), and new Windows Phone smart-phones (Focus Flash and the Focus S). These, alongwith its own steadily growing feature phone volumes,pushed Samsung closer to market leader Nokia, with

fewer than 20 million units separating them in 4Q11.Apple jumped into the third spot globally from thefifth spot last quarter thanks to a record-breakingquarter of shipments. That represents the Cupertino-based company's highest-ever ranking on IDC's Top5 global mobile phone leaderboard. The launch ofApple's iPhone 4S smartphone, which is now avail-able in over 90 countries (as of mid-January), wasthe primary reason the company leapt over LG andZTE in 4Q11. Device sales in the U.S. and Japan wereparticularly strong given extra sales days in the quar-ter and carrier distribution.

LG's total volumes declined for the third consec-utive quarter, sinking to levels not seen since the sec-ond quarter of 2007. Driving this result was acombination of waning interest in its aging featurephones and stalled smartphone volumes. In addi-tion, from a full year perspective, LG posted thelargest full year-over-year decline among the leadingvendors. Still, the quarter did have some bright spots,including a return to profitability and a warm recep-tion for its Optimus LTE smartphones across multi-ple markets. 2012 will feature more smartphonesfrom LG, especially LTE-powered models, but thecompetition has similar smartphone strategies.

Chinese vendor ZTE nearly tied with LG forfourth place, with fewer than a million units sepa-rating the two vendors. Long known as a purveyor ofentry level devices, ZTE's smartphones increasinglymoved into the spotlight. The company's primarytargets included countries throughout Asia/Pacific,but it also gained presence in EMEA and LatinAmerica, and branched out into North America. Keymodels for the quarter included its popular mass-market Blade and mid-range Skate Android smart-phones, and recently the company added its firstWindows Phone-powered smartphone, the Tania. n

Nokia continues to lead the mobile space by moving 417.1million devices, and accounting for 27 percent of the totalmarket. Samsung notched up 329.4 million units to grab 21.3percent of the market share. Interestingly, Apple managed tograb the third spot by pushing LG down to fourth place


45


As it did with music and cellphones,Apple recently fundamentally redefinedwhat a textbook is with the announce-ment of iBooks 2 and its accompanying

iBooks Author software. The benefits of iBooks2 and its interactive textbooks were hammeredhome during Apple’s New York City press event:they’re interactive, easily updated, portable, thelist goes on. But now that Apple’s hype machinehas calmed down a bit, the issues with the com-pany’s grand plan to revitalize education are be-coming more apparent.

First, there are the obvious problems. ForApple’s digital textbooks to actually take off,more students will need easy access to iPads. I,along with many others, expected Apple to an-nounce some sort of plan to get more iPads inschools. But instead, the event ended abruptly asif Apple’s executives left the stage in mid-song.

At $500 a pop, an iPad isn’t a light buying de-cision for most college students. Though if Appleis successful at convincing schools to adopt itsdigital textbooks, schools will likely be able tooffer the tablets at a discount for students.

In an ideal world, students would actuallysave money by purchasing an iPad and spendingfar less on books every semester (Apple’s currentdigital textbooks retail for $15 and under). Fornow though, an iPad will be another added ex-pense on top of all the paper books students stillneed to buy.

For K-12 public schools, it would be theschool systems that have to purchase the iPadsfor students. Again, they may get some majordiscounts from Apple, but I can’t imagine toomany public schools that would be willing to givekids and teenagers an expensive gadget to takehome.

Paul Edelman, founder and CEO of the openeducation marketplace Teachers Pay Teachers,

calls the digital textbook’s reliance on the iPad“either a brilliant strategy on Apple’s part, or itwill make its overall impact underwhelming.”Teachers have already earned over $4 million onTeachers Pay Teachers selling course guides andother materials to other educators, somethingthat shows many teachers will likely take upApple’s offer to create textbooks using iBooksAuthor and sell them on the iBookstore.

Edelman goes on to say, “iBooks Author,though very neat since it is available to everyone,my suffer the same fate since creators of contentlock their users into one hardware device. Todayteachers create content using many different ap-plications that can then be used on any platformor device. I love Apple, but in education open isbetter than closed.”

In addition to being locked down to creatingcontent for the iPad, there are also issues with

Apple’s End User License Agreement (commonlycalled a EULA) for iBooks Author. In short, if youuse the software to create an e-book, you canonly sell the book on the iBookstore. Given thatApple is providing sophisticated e-book creationsoftware for free, that doesn’t seem too unrea-sonable.

The real problem, though, is that Apple does-n’t even ask you to agree to the EULA, it’s as-sumed that you do if you use the software, asDan Winer points out. Winer writes:

Apple has quietly pushed desktop softwareinto uncharted territory with iBooks Author. AsWiner points out, it’s as if Microsoft tried to en-force how you could use a Microsoft Word docu-ment. It’s the sort of thing open source softwaretypes have been worrying about for years, espe-cially after Apple’s extremely restrictive stanceon iOS app development.

While I applaud Apple’s idealism when itcomes to technology and education, realisticallywe’re going to need a lot more than an updatediBooks app and snazzy e-book editor to make areal difference in schools.

Technology-centric solutions also often fail tokeep in mind the value of alternatives. There’scertainly something to be said for students en-gaging with material primarily because of an ef-fective teacher. And when it comes to mathproblems, students will still need to be able todemonstrate on paper how they reached solu-tions, even if a calculator or iPad is helping themwith the actual number crunching.

My biggest worry is if Apple’s vision takes offat the expense of other useful strategies for edu-cations. Given the cost of iPads, accessories, andmaintenance, many schools could see their budg-ets blown away on Apple’s products, instead ofother non-digital materials that could be just ashelpful. n

Edelman said, “iBooksAuthor, though very neat

since it is available toeveryone, my suffer the samefate since creators of content

lock their users into onehardware device. Today

teachers create content usingmany different applications

that can then be used on anyplatform or device. I love

Apple, but in education openis better than closed”

The benefits of iBooks 2 and its interactive textbooks were hammered home duringApple’s New York City press event: they’re interactive, easily updated, portable, thelist goes on. But now that Apple’s hype machine has calmed down a bit, the issueswith the company’s grand plan to revitalize education are becoming more apparent


46


WiFi is the

over the

air net-

work used

by millions of comput-

ers across the world to

connect up to each

other and the internet.

There is no doubt that

by now you are familiar

with some of the basics

of what this is with free

WiFi hotspots all over

the place. Many people

do not even stop for

second to consider how

the technology works or

why it is so fast and so

easy to connect up. In

this article I am going

to examine the basics of

wireless networking so

you can have a better

understanding of how

the technology func-

tions.

Wireless Network-

ing (Wi-Fi) has made it

so easy for you to use

the computer, portable

media player, mobile

phones, video game consoles, and other wireless

devices anywhere in the house without the clut-

ter of cables.

With traditional wired networks, it is ex-

tremely difficult for someone to steal your band-

width but the big problem with wireless signals

is that others can access the Internet using your

broadband connection even while they are in a

neighboring building or sitting in a car that's

parked outside your apartment.

The good news is that it is not very hard to

make your wireless network secure, which will

both prevent others from stealing your internet

and will also prevent hackers from taking con-

trol of your computers through your own wire-

less network.

Here a few simple things that you

should do to secure your wireless net-

work:

First, you need to know how to access your

wireless router’s settings. Usually you can do

this by typing in “192.168.1.1” into your web

browser, and then enter the correct user name

and password for the router. This is different for

each router, so first check your router’s user

manual.

Once you have logged into your router, the

first thing you should do to secure your network

is to change the default password of the router

to something more secure.

This will prevent others from accessing the

router and you can easily maintain the security

settings that you want. You can change the pass-

word from the Administration settings on your

router’s settings page. The default values are

generally admin / password.

The SSID (or Wireless Network Name) of

your Wireless Router is usually pre-defined as

"default" or is set as the brand name of the

router. Although this will not make your network

inherently more secure, changing the SSID name

of your network is a good idea as it will make it

more obvious for others to know which network

they are connecting to.

In order to prevent other computers in the

area from using your internet connection, you

need to encrypt your wireless signals.

There are several encryption methods for

wireless settings, including WEP, WPA (WPA-

Personal), and WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access

version 2). To enable encryption on your Wire-

less network, open the wireless security settings

on your router’s configuration page. This will

usually let you select

which security method

you wish to choose; if

you have older devices,

choose WEP, otherwise

go with WPA2. Enter a

passphrase to access

the network; make sure

to set this to something

that would be difficult

for others to guess, and

consider using a combi-

nation of letters, num-

bers, and special

characters in the

passphrase.

What do the bad

guys use - AirCrack and

coWPAtty are some free

tools that allow even

non-hackers to crack

the WEP / WPA (PSK)

keys using dictionary or

brute force techniques.

A video on YouTube

suggests that AirCrack

may be easily used to

break WiFi encryption

using a jail-broken

iPhone or an iPod

Touch.

Whether you have a laptop or a Wi-Fi enabled

mobile phone, all your wireless devices have a

unique MAC address (this has nothing to do with

an Apple Mac) just like every computer con-

nected to the Internet has a unique IP address.

For an added layer of protection, you can add the

MAC addresses of all your devices to your wire-

less router’s settings so that only the specified

devices can connect to your Wi-Fi network.

If your wireless router has a high range but

you are staying in a small studio apartment, you

can consider decreasing the signal range by ei-

ther changing the mode of your router to 802.11g

(instead of 802.11n or 802.11b) or use a different

wireless channel.

You can also try placing the router under the

bed, inside a shoe box or wrap a foil around the

router antennas so that you can somewhat re-

strict the direction of signals.

You should check the manufacturer's site oc-

casionally to make sure that your router is run-

ning the latest firmware. You can find the

existing firmware version of your router using

from the router's dashboard at 192.168.

Once you have enabled the various security

settings in your wireless router, you need to add

the new settings to your computers and other

wireless devices so that they all can connect to

the Wi-Fi network. You can select to have your

computer automatically connect to this network,

so you won’t have to enter the SSID, passphrase

and other information every time you connect to

the Internet.

Your wireless network will now be a lot more

secure and intruders may have a tough time in-

tercepting your Wi-Fi signals. n

In order to prevent othercomputers in the area from

using your internetconnection, you need to

encrypt your wireless signals.There are several encryption

methods for wirelesssettings, including WEP, WPA(WPA-Personal), and WPA2

(Wi-Fi Protected Accessversion 2)

Wi-Fi has made it so easy for you to use the computer, portable media player,mobile phones, video game consoles, and other wireless devices anywhere in thehouse without the clutter of cables


48


Abacus Consutling participated in Lahore School

of Economics job fair held in Lahore recently.

Director Sales Mobilink Infinity Aamer Manzoor gives

away prize to a lucky winner of Tombola Night.

CEO CMPAK Fan Yun Jun and CEO Wisecomm Shahid Mehmood Bhatti

exchanging documents after singing a MoU in Islamabad

Punjab Chief Minister along with family members of Arfa

Karim inaugurates the Arfa IT Centre in Lahore.

Managing Director PIA, Mr. Nadeem Khan Yousufzai and Mrs. Zareen Khan Youfufzai, the ailing children, Mr. Ishtiaq Baig, President Make a Wish Foundation-Pakistan and members of the

Diplomatic core in Karachi.

Mobilink sales team and business partners at the

Jazz Inami Hungama launch in Karachi.

Free download | f lare.pk

49

National Mosaic

A faithful takes a picture with a mobile phone as

Pope Benedict XVI leads the Angelus prayer

from the windows of his private apartment in

Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican.

Actor Steve Carell and wife Nancy (C) look at thecell phone of actress Jenna Fischer (L) at the 18th

annual Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles.

Japanese actress Maki Horikita introduces a mobile produced byNTT DoCoMo and Walt Disney Japan during a press preview.

A demonstrator takes pictures with her mobile phone during a protest against

Syria's President Bashar Al-Assad in front of the Syrian Consulate in Istanbul.

A model shows off the new FX-format digital singlelens reflex (SLR) camera 'D800' Nikon, during a

press preview in Tokyo.

Sony's outgoing president and CEO HowardStringer (R) and his successor Kazuo Hirai shake

hands after their news conference in Tokyo.

Bollywood actress and Samsung India's brandambassador Priyanka Chopra poses with the

newly launch split air conditioners at a productlaunch in Hyderabad.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton looks at aphone message with Assistant Secretary of Statefor European Affairs Philip Gordon as they wait in

a conference room for a bilateral meeting withUkrainian President.

Free download | f la re .pkMosaic National

50

Since the 1970s, pundits have predict-

ed a transition to an "information

economy". The vision of an economy

based on information seized the imag-

inations of the world's governments. For decades

now, they have been creating policies to "protect"

information — stronger copyright laws, inter-

national treaties on patents and trademarks,

treaties to protect anti-copying technology.

The thinking is simple: an information econ-

omy must be based on buying and selling in-

formation. Therefore, we need policies to make

it harder to get access to information unless

you've paid for it.

That means that we have to make it harder

for you to share information, even after you've

paid for it. Without the ability to fence off your

information property, you can't have an infor-

mation market to fuel the information economy.

Globally, 30 billion pieces of information are

shared on Facebook every month, 350 billion

tweets make their way into the online world

every day, and more than 300 billion email con-

versations happen daily, as a norm.

Closer home, we have reached a milestone of

100 million internet users, with more than 33

million leading the way through social networks.

Online reviews, references, likes and opinions

are the order of the day. The fate of a movie gets

decided by the number of SMSs sent out from a

“Send All“ command on a mobile phone. A bad

experience at a restaurant travels on the net

within minutes.

In parallel, companies capture trillions of

bytes of information about their customers and

other partners along the value chain from mil-

lions of networked devices such as mobile

phones, automobiles and other consumer

durables. All this data throws up challenges for

marketers.

Distilling insights and analysing consumer

behavior now necessitates an understanding of

the unique chemistry developing between con-

sumers and technology.

The implications are manifold. For starters,

it puts the consumer truly in the center of all

things. A greater degree of transparency, com-

parisons across different offerings and reviews

and opinions has given a new meaning to terms

such as advocacy and brand loyalty. Marketers

have always prided themselves for their abili-

ty to understand consumer needs and design

suitable offerings for such needs. Today, both of

these are going through a metamorphosis.

Data is everywhere there is a wealth of cus-

tomer data being captured through the use of

RFID, sensors, geo-tagging and other such

methods. Even small amounts of data, when col-

lected over time, can provide a wealth of perti-

nent information. A customer's grocery purchase

data, if collated over a year as a part of a coali-

tion loyalty card, could reveal buyer behaviour

insights and at the same time, enable marketers

to offer unique propositions. A sensor in the shoe

or mobile phone can provide running patterns

to a shoe manufacturer, who can then suggest

the right shoe for a user. Nike+ used this suc-

cessfully to create a strategic advantage.

Instant offers data around consumers, cap-

tured through different sources at multiple

points in time, throws up a huge chunk of in-

formation. When high levels of analytics oper-

ate on that, what emerges is “useful intelligence“

for creating relevant products and services.

Quite often, data points talk to each other and

help create an offering that is almost instanta-

neous.

Consider, for example, that a shopper at a re-

tail store reaches the billing desk. The moment

the loyalty card is swiped, the counter staff gets

to know that the consumer is a regular buyer of

wine. In parallel, the store data system shows

-in a popup -that there is an offer on a brand of

wine that the consumer has purchased in the

past. Back-end analytics suggest that the con-

sumer has used reward points in the past to

make a purchase, while counter staff can check

the current reward points on the loyalty card.

They can then make an offer with a marginal-

ly higher discount, persuading the consumer to

buy the wine with the accumulated reward

points. Technology has enabled a sale out of

nowhere.

Indirect tech impact in many cases, the end

user does not experience the technology effects

directly. In a new experiment, insurance advi-

sors have started using consumer insights and

co-creation to deliver an on-the-spot policy, us-

ing a tablet. The result is a need-based, trans-

parent and relevant. Technology is therefore get-

ting re-born as a strategic enabler that can help

the marketer influence all parts of the consumer

buying behavior. It is also helping reduce the

time to respond to such intelligence in parallel.

Recognising that the decision making window

is small, marketers can react fast with persua-

sive offers. The result: higher levels of customer

satisfaction. n

Even small amounts of data,when collected over time, canprovide a wealth of pertinent

information. A customer's grocerypurchase data, if collated over a

year as a part of a coalition loyaltycard, could reveal buyer

behaviour insights and at thesame time, enable marketers to

offer unique propositions

Data sharing and technologyThe information economy is here - but governments and business are still obsessed with 'protecting'

information, rather than making it more productive; globally, 30 billion pieces of information are shared

on Facebook every month, 350 billion tweets make their way into the online world every day, and

more than 300 billion email conversations happen daily

Free download | f la re .pk

51

Maira Akhtar InsighT

Human beings are emotional animals atthe core; a strong affection or attrac-tion can develop anywhere – thestreet, the neighborhood, universi-

ties (ah yes, we have been there haven’t we?).Well, when romance springs up in an office set-up it can lead to one of two things; it can eitherbloom into a beautiful tube rose, tall and mag-nificent – or, it can be your worst nightmare (itcan lead to a termination, a law suit for harass-ment, downfall of one’s career and so on). Thereis nothing wrong with having an attraction or thatspecial spark for someone; but one should bemindful of the line between a delicate passionateromance and an offending harassment.

Research shows we are likely to spend a thirdor even more of our lives at places where we work;it is then not surprising for the buds of romanceto bloom at the office. Companies have tried toput a ban on dating among employees; but theysoon realized “if it has to happen, it will happen”.Also, if two employees are romantically attract-ed, and if these two employees happen to beamong the best ones a company has, they mightlose their sense of loyalty for the company. Today,responsible companies have removed the re-striction with a statement “what you do with yourlife is your business; we only care about how pro-ductive you are between office hours”. Still, howto make sure a manager isn’t taken off guard and

how to make sure you as the management get thebest out of this inevitable situation?

The first thing you as a manager need to dois make sure your company has a “harassmentpolicy” – if there is not one in place, generate oneand have it enforced as soon as possible. Ac-knowledging and appreciating the human ele-ment in your organization you obviously cannotcreate borders for emotions or feelings; but, youcan make the harassment policy very clear to yourhuman resource and let them know about thecompany’s take on the issue should one bebrought up. If there is an employee who is not in-terested or receptive to the advances of another,they should know they can always come up to youand let you know with a confidence that theiridentity and the case will be dealt with high con-fidentiality.

Many educational institutes as well as officesthe world over have defined what is appropriateand what is not. Yes, this does sound a little harshbut then again, the company and its interestscome first. The policy should spell out clearly

what is and what isn’t appropriate. The benefits of allowing romance among em-

ployees within acceptable limits can do wondersfor the morale of your human re-source. To start with, you willhave a bunch of happy workerswho love to work together. Ahappy worker is a productiveworker right? The other benefit isthat you will have fewer ab-sentees since workers emo-tionally connected will lookforward to spending timewith each other, and sincethey can be together for pro-longed hours at the officethey will do their best not toabsent themselves from theoffice. Another advantage isthat emotional partnersknow they have some-one they can trust andconfide in to talk abouttheir activities and is-sues at work – this way,they will try to resolvethe issue among them-selves before coming toyou – eventually, themanagement will have

more time to think about more seriousissues like market competition andgrowth.

Situations like these can be controlled in a waythat most downsides are preventable; yet, thereare some which are simply not, no matter how ef-fective and well laid policy you have in place. Iftwo employees decide to get married, you mightlose one of perhaps both. On the other side, youwill at times have a few couples who will start to

think they are a little more smarter than you –thinking that way, they will try to find loop holeswithin the policy. This particular disadvantage

can be your strength shouldyou decide to see it that way.

Even if couples do findloopholes they are ac-

tually doing you a favorby finding them for you tofill. Another issue that mayarise is the case of “heart-breaks” which is devastatingto say the least – you cannot

prevent this from happen-ing, but if it does you

can ease the suffering,you will need to make

sure there is someone in the com-pany, who is friendly, popular among your em-ployees and someone everyone likes to talk to. Ifan employee does give the appearance of a ship-wreck, s/he can go to this individual and talk itout. You will be surprised how much a simple con-versation can help.

Prevention is better than cure and this issomething you cannot prevent; but you can lim-it an undesirable event. Make sure you have a“fraternization policy”, well formulated and firm-ly enforced. A well composed, widely publicizedand strictly enforced fraternization policy will stillnot prevent office romances from blooming; how-ever, it will make it a lot easier and less litigiousfor everyone involved particularly you, the man-agement.

Remember, a good manager gets things done;a better manager mentors his/her subordinatesto accomplish tasks time and time again, beingmindful of their feelings and emotions. n

Acknowledging and appreciating the human element in yourorganization you obviously cannot create borders for emotions or

feelings; but, you can make the harassment policy very clear to yourhuman resource and let them know about the company’s take on theissue should one be brought up. If there is an employee who is not

interested or receptive to the advances of another

Fluttering butterflies in office

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52


When romance springs up in an office setup it can lead to one of two things; it can either bloominto a beautiful tube rose, tall and magnificent – or, it can be your worst nightmare (it can leadto a termination, a law suit for harassment, downfall of one’s career and so on). There is noth-ing wrong with having an attraction or that special spark for someone

Companies such as Facebook, Googleand PayPal are pushing for widespreaduse of a new technical specification,DMARC, that could make it harder for

phishers to reach their victims.A common problem with email is that it is very

easy to spoof the "from" address, making it dif-ficult for an average user to know if an email isreally from the domain it purports to be from.

Technologies such as DKIM and SPF alreadyallow domain owners to vouch for mail sent intheir name, but don't specify what to do with mes-sages that fail the test. DMARC builds on thosesystems, allowing domain owners to ask receiv-ing mail servers to discard mail that fails au-thentication tests. That will make it less likelythat scam messages impersonating sites such asPayPal will appear in your inbox.

There is a huge financial incentive for crim-inals to compromise user accounts on social in-ternet and e-commerce sites in order to steal pass-words and bank account or credit card details, ac-cording to the DMARC group. To do that, spam-mers and phishers often exploit trust in well-known brands by sending email purporting to befrom such sites.

The specification for DMARC (Domain-basedMessage Authentication, Reporting & Confor-mance) allows organizations sending email to in-dicate whether they are using one or both of twosecurity technologies to authenticate the senderof email messages, and includes a reporting mech-anism where email senders can get feedback on

how their messages are being handled. With thatinformation, once domain owners have finetuned the mail-sending process, they can tell re-ceivers to outright reject messages purporting tobe from the domain that don't pass muster.

One of the authentication technologies isDKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), which ver-

ifies the domain name through which a messagewas sent by analyzing the message's crypto-graphic signature. Recipients can choose to putmore trust in messages coming from a domainthat is considered reputable.

The other is SPF (Sender Policy Frame-work), which allows domain owners to specifywhich hosts are allowed to send email for theirdomains. With SPF, if a scammer forges the "from" address, a bogus email can be identified by

checking the SPF record.DKIM and SPF have been used by a number

of companies for several years. But there are sev-eral problems that DMARC aims to fix. It hasbeen hard for email receivers to always authen-ticate messages sent with SPF or DKIM due tothe use of third-party service providers, accord-ing to DMARC.org.

Also, if a domain sends a mix of messages --some authenticated, some not -- it's hard for re-ceivers to distinguish legitimate messages thathaven't been authenticated from fraudulentones.

The DMARC group plans to submit a draft ofthe specification to the Internet Engineering TaskForce in the hope that it will eventually becomean industry standard.

Google is hoping the industry's latest push forDMARC will maintain momentum for antispamefforts. So far, participating companies includeBank of America, Fidelity, Microsoft, Yahoo,PayPal, LinkedIn, AOL, American Greetings,Cloudmark and Agari.

"Industry groups come and go, and it's not al-ways easy to tell at the beginning which ones areactually going to generate good solutions," wroteAdam Dawes, a Google product manager. "Whenthe right contributors come together to solve realproblems, though, real things happen."

The issue in the coming months will be howquickly the technology is adopted, said Paul Wood,senior intelligence analyst for Symantec.cloud, thecompany's Web-based security and email branch.There will be a certain amount of overhead thatcompanies will incur when processing returnedmessages to see who is spoofing their domains,he said.

With the rise of the social internet and theubiquity of e-commerce, spammers and phishershave a tremendous financial incentive to com-promise user accounts, enabling theft of pass-words, bank accounts, credit cards, and more.Email is easy to spoof and criminals have foundspoofing to be a proven way to exploit user trustof well-known brands. Simply inserting the logoof a well known brand into an email gives it in-stant legitimacy with many users.

Users can't tell a real message from a fake one,and large mailbox providers have to make verydifficult (and frequently incorrect) choices aboutwhich messages to deliver and which ones mightharm users. Senders remain largely unaware ofproblems with their authentication practicesbecause there's no scalable way for them to in-dicate they want feedback and where it should besent.

A DMARC policy allows a sender to indicatethat their emails are protected by SPF and/orDKIM, and tells a receiver what to do if neitherof those authentication methods passes - such asjunk or reject the message. DMARC removesguesswork from the receiver's handling of thesefailed messages, limiting or eliminating theuser's exposure to potentially fraudulent &harmful messages. DMARC also provides a wayfor the email receiver to report back to thesender about messages that pass and/or failDMARC evaluation.

DMARC policies are published in the publicDomain Name System (DNS), and available toeveryone. It is the goal of DMARC.org to submitthe draft specification to the IETF so that it maybegin the process of becoming an official InternetStandard RFC - available to everyone for refer-ence, implementation, and improvement." n

DMARC standardizes how emailreceivers perform email

authentication using the well-known SPF and DKIM

mechanisms. This means thatsenders will experience consistent

authentication results for theirmessages at AOL, Gmail,

Hotmail, Yahoo! and any otheremail receiver

IT bigwigs join handsto wipe out PhishingA common problem with email is that it is very easy to spoofthe "from" address, making it difficult for an average user toknow if an email is really from the domain it purports to be from


53


The growth of quality Arabic content on-line is being limited by a lack of talent,tools, funding and freedom, according tospeakers at a digital media conference

in Dubai last week.Although hindered by these factors, a study

debated at the Digital Media Forum 2012 showsthat Arabic user-generated content is slowly in-creasing, which presents opportunities for busi-nesses to mine data and target advertising via so-cial media platforms.

According to the Arab Social Media Report(ASMR), 70 percent of Facebook users in the re-gion are men, significantly bucking the globaltrend, as 61 percent of all Facebook users world-wide are women. It is men, explained report au-thor Fadi Salem, who prefer the Arabic mediumand the business world should take note.

"I don't think companies are looking at thesebreakdowns seriously, but are just 'guestimating'and providing content based on what they havearound their networks and because English is aprimary business language," said Salem, duringa panel discussion at the conference.

The internet originated in the western world,resulting in English being adopted as the linguafranca, ultimately influencing global commerceand communication. But recent studies have es-timated there are now 72.5 million internetusers in the Middle East, of which 60.25 millionare Arabic speakers. Dana Adhami, Digital Di-rector of the annual media summit Mindshare,stated that the relatively small amount of Ara-bic content is directly linked to a lack of talent in

the region, both in terms of user generated con-tent and digital production, which in turn relat-ed to a need for better facilities, or tools.

"The other issue related to talent is infra-structure. The capability of writing right-to-left, and setting up technologies that adhere toArabic language, is somewhat a challenge in theregion. To create a platform or application in Eng-lish could take around four weeks in development,but then if you wanted to do that that in Arabic,

changing things around adds [much more time],"Adhami added.

Meanwhile, microblogging platform Twitterhas announced that right-to-left languages are in-deed in the works for its growing translation plat-form, starting with Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew andUrdu. A team of 425,000 volunteer translators areinvolved with the new development, which is ex-pected to be released later in the year.

Campaigns by Twitter users such as @sup-portarabic and @Taghreedat, who have promot-ed the #letstweetinarabic hashtag, have been lob-bying tens of thousands of followers to commu-nicate in their native language. There are now al-ready 2.2m Arabic tweets daily, marking a 2,146percent increase over 12 months, according to aseparate study by Paris-based Semiocast. Totalglobal tweets number 180 million per day.

Twitter played an important role in the ArabSpring, particularly during the first part of2011. The ASMR estimates the number or tweetsgenerated by 'active users' in the first quarter of2011 numbered 22,750,000 - roughly three tweetsevery second. The most popular hashtags were#egypt, with 1.4m mentions and #jan25, mark-ing the outset of the Egyptian revolution, whichwas mentioned 1.2m times

Sites such as Wikipedia in Arabic do show thatthere are online users translating vast librariesof information, but the prevalent issue in pro-ducing original content is freedom, which, ac-

cording to Hussein Hallak, co-founder of contentdevelopment firm TheContentPeople, is a 'num-ber one requirement.'

With opinions varying on how to profit fromthe ever-growing online Arabic community, it isup to companies to learn from the seemingly end-less flow of user generated content via social me-dia. User generated content not only indicatestrends, but plays a huge part in setting them, alsoproviding greater opportunities for targetingadvertising.

As development continues with social and oth-er digital media, governments and businesses willalso need to regulate accordingly. This would cre-ate business opportunities surrounding compli-ance and consultancy, according to Fadi Salem,who subsequently tied monetisation to related po-litical issues.

"The changes that happened in the Arabworld in 2011 will mean that there will be a lotof usage online for advocacy and political cam-paigning, etc. This is something that most busi-nesses in the Arab world do not have any ex-pertise in - and it's a matter of time. This is some-thing that will be one of the key factors in onlineusage," he explained.

Later, towards the close of the event, it wasEtisalat's Vice President of Technology Strategywho had the last word, suggesting, in his keynotespeech, that 'customer data is the new oil'. n

Microblogging platform Twitter hasannounced that right-to-leftlanguages are indeed in the

works for its growing translationplatform, starting with Arabic,

Farsi, Hebrew and Urdu. A teamof 425,000 volunteer translators

are involved with the newdevelopment, which is expectedto be released later in the year

Experts debate online Arabiccontent growth


54


Digital Media Forum 2012 shows that Arabic user-generated content is slowly increasing, which pres-

ents opportunities for businesses to mine data and target advertising via social media platforms


55

Islamabad: Pakistan Telecom-munication Company Limited (PTCL)EVO Wi-Fi Cloud introduced newpackages for its customers.

EVO Wi-Fi Cloud is Pakistan'sfirst intelligent mobile Wi-Fi devicethat puts the world of content, serv-ices and connectivity in the palm ofthe user's hand.

It is a smart 3G enabled sleek andattractive Wi-Fi device that intelli-gently converts a user's home orwork's space into a personalized Mo-bile Wi-Fi zone, just on the push of abutton, said a press release.

The dual capabilities of EVDO &Wi-Fi lets EVO Cloud's users enjoythe functionalities of a modem, router

and an access point in a singlepocket fit sized device, which ispowerful enough to provideinternet to five Wi-Fi enabledgadgets simultaneously.

Now introducing new re-vised packages to accommo-date the recently implementedGST on the product, EVO

Cloud device can be obtained for Rs.8,120 formonthly contract, while the massive savingsbundle can now be availed for just Rs 12,120.

With the massive savings bundle offer,customers can enjoy unlmited internet accessfor 3 months at the price of two months.

SEVP Commercial PTCL Naveed Saeedon the occasion stated, "PTCL is determinedto bring the most cutting edge innovative so-lutions and technologies to its customers. Weare constantly introducing new technologiesand products to provide customers with themost advanced mobility solutions available.

The Evo Wi-Fi Cloud mobile hotspotwith a form factor about the size of a few cred-it cards is convenient to carry in pocket andlooks good anywhere from the boardroom tothe coffee shop ".

EVP Wireless business Omar Khalidstated; "The portability of the Evo Wi-FiCloud design with one-touch connectivity forup to five Wi-Fi enabled devices delivers atrue wireless experience with no cables orsoftware installation required, the EVO Wi-Fi cloud easily support all the needs of a fam-ily household, a frequent traveler who wantsto avoid Wi-Fi charges, or even a smallbusiness team". n

Telenor Pakistan, as part of its Karo

Mumkin initiative, is helping provide 10,000

paper notebooks to school children belonging

to low income families. The notebooks are

made from recycled waste paper by Sabz, an

NGO founded by Fariha Ambreen, who had

won Telenor’s Karo Mumkin campaign.

The two winning ideas out of 25,000 total

ideas submitted to Karo Mumkin were fund-

ed by Telenor Pakistan with Rs. 2 million for

each project.

Fariha Ambreen had won for her idea of

‘Recycling Paper to Provide Notebooks to

Schools for Under Privileged Children’ while

Mr. Abdul Haq Mohiuddin’s idea of ‘Donating

Rs. 100 from your Monthly Salary to Make

Education Possible for Street Children’ had

won the competition. n

PTCL EVO Wi-Fi Cloud introduces new packages

Telenor gives awaynotebooks to children

One of the most

common sources

of computer in-

strusions has

stopped infecting new ma-

chines after security re-

searchers working with

Facebook released the

names of five suspected

ringleaders.

After more than two

years of work, a pair of re-

searchers published the

names, aliases and photo-

graphs of a gang they ac-

cused of running a criminal

enterprise known as Koob-

face that had primarily tar-

geted Facebook after it

cropped up in 2008.

German security re-

searchers Jan Droemer and

Dirk Kollberg said that

servers that ran the Koob-

face operation stopped re-

sponding after they released

an in-depth report via Koll-

berg's employer, the UK

anti-virus software maker

Sophos.

Some computers used to

control Koobface had previ-

ously been disabled and it had not spread

through Facebook connections since early last

year.

But until the new disclosures, the Koobface

gang had continued to target other social net-

works as a long-running FBI probe failed to re-

sult in arrests in Russia.

Koobface spread primarily through captured

social networking accounts that prompted

friends to install software to view a video. Ini-

tially content with small-scale advertising fraud,

the group had also begun to distribute more per-

nicious software, including the Zeus trojans for

bank-account theft, according to another re-

searcher collaborating with Facebook, Gary

Warner of the University of Alabama-Birming-

ham.

Kaspersky Lab, a large security software com-

pany, said its database showed that the Koobface

virus had afflicted between 400,000 and

800,000 computers during its heyday in 2010.

"The thing that we are most excited about is

that the botnet is down," said Facebook security

official Ryan McGeehan. "Our decision to be-

come transparent about this has had a 24-hour

impact. Only time will tell if it's permanent but it

was certainly effective."

Droemer and Kollberg said that they had

planned to hold off on publishing their data until

law enforcement had captured the suspects.

They released it earlier, with Facebook's bless-

ing, after one of those suspects, who goes by the

alias "Krotreal," was named last week by another

researcher.

Facebook Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan

said he had endorsed the release because he felt

the exposure might disrupt the group.

Indeed, those identified have erased social

networking profiles cited by the researchers, and

many of the phone numbers have been reas-

signed.

"Krotreal," for example, renamed his account

on the Russian social networking site twice, then

deleted it altogether, along with his Twitter feed

and LiveJournal accounts.

None of the five alleged members of the hack-

ing group could immediately be traced to the re-

ported office addresses or phone numbers in St

Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city. At the

MobSoft address named by Sophos, a reporter

found a dilapidated building that once belonged

to a company controlling seaport currency trade

in the Soviet Union. Today the building, near a

port docking station, is

mostly occupied by shipping

companies. An employee of

one of the firms told he had

never heard of a firm by the

name of MobSoft.

"Our company has been

renting an office here for

three years, but there is no

firm named MobSoft here

and there has never been

one," he said. Neither the

building's concierge nor its

manager, who had been in

her job for the past 15 years,

knew about MobSoft or the

suspected hacker group.

The legal address for

MobSoft found in online di-

rectories, and in the SKRIN

stock exchange companies'

database, led media to an

apartment complex a few

blocks away from the Mari-

insky theatre, whose ballet

troupe ranks with Moscow's

Bolshoi as Russia's most

prestigious.

There was no response

when the reporter rang the

bell and knocked on the old

wooden rusty-colored door.

Calls to the numbers provided in the Sophos

reports yielded no valid leads. One of the names

listed under the telephone numbers matched

that in the report. But most did not.

At the official MobSoft number, media

reached a man calming a crying baby who said

strangers had started calling him recently with

questions about Koobface and MobSoft. He said

he had not heard of either.

The two German researchers said they sus-

pected that the hackers had been working out of

a third location in St. Petersburg.

Russia's anti-cybercrime unit, the Interior

Ministry's K Directorate, said it has yet to inves-

tigate the matter because it has not been asked

to. "An official request needs to be filed to the K

Directorate first, and when it's filed, we will cer-

tainly investigate and work on it," said Larisa

Zhukova, a representative at the cyber unit, told.

"The request must come from the victim, that

is Facebook. Because anyone can say or write

anything, but it is all unfounded so far," she

added.

Members of Facebook's security staff de-

clined to comment on their discussions with law

enforcement officials. Others working with Face-

book said that the MVD, or Interior Ministry,

had indeed been involved, with little visible

progress.

"I like that we're getting the dialogue about

the challenges of cross-border enforcement,"

Sullivan, the Facebook security officer, said. "Ul-

timately, the goal here is to have an impact. As a

security team, we don't have the luxury that

every case ends in an arrest." n

Facebook Chief SecurityOfficer Joe Sullivan said hehad endorsed the release

because he felt the exposuremight disrupt the group.

Indeed, those identified haveerased social networking

profiles cited by theresearchers, and many of the

phone numbers have beenreassigned

Koobface spread primarily through captured social networking accounts that promptedfriends to install software to view a video; Koobface had previously been disabled andit had not spread through Facebook connections since early last year


56


Islamabad: Ufonehas once again posi-tioned itself as a marketleader in innovation andunique ideas. Ufone haslaunched MyTunes serv-ice, one of the mostpromising value addedservice in the industry.

For the first time inPakistan, Ufone userswill have the exclusiveoption to listen to thesongs of their choice oncethey call on any number.Officially known as My-Tunes the caller gets tohear the tune that he

sets for himself, insteadof listening to the con-ventional ring-tone, orcaller tunes set by theperson they are makinga call to. Users can dial666 and select MyTunesfrom Urdu and Englishmelodies.

Speaking at thelaunch, Akbar Khan,Chief marketing officerat Ufone said that it wasimportant to understandthe changing require-ments of the customersand work towards de-veloping such servicesand propositions whichcater to the evolvingneeds of Ufone sub-scriber base. He also saidthat with this attractiveservice, call-making willbecome more enjoyableand fun! n

Islamabad: Ufonehas once again posi-tioned itself as a marketleader in innovation andunique ideas. Ufone haslaunched MyTunes serv-ice, one of the mostpromising value addedservice in the industry.

For the first time inPakistan, Ufone userswill have the exclusiveoption to listen to thesongs of their choice oncethey call on any number.Officially known as My-Tunes the caller gets tohear the tune that he

sets for himself, insteadof listening to the con-ventional ring-tone, orcaller tunes set by theperson they are makinga call to. Users can dial666 and select MyTunesfrom Urdu and Englishmelodies.

Speaking at thelaunch, Akbar Khan,Chief marketing officerat Ufone said that it wasimportant to understandthe changing require-ments of the customersand work towards de-veloping such servicesand propositions whichcater to the evolvingneeds of Ufone sub-scriber base. He also saidthat with this attractiveservice, call-making willbecome more enjoyableand fun! n

Islamabad: Makingthis Valentine’s Day spe-cial for its customers,Warid brings some ex-tremely exciting Valen-tines value added serv-ices. It includes LoveMeter, a meter that

gauges couple’s compat-ibility, SMS love story,that tells a unique lovestory based on couples’names, exciting LoveQuizzes, Romantic SongsCaller Tunes, Song Ded-ication, Baba G k Valen-tines Predictions and aspecial Valentine’s Day

WAP through whichusers can download un-limited contents includ-ing Wallpapers, RingTones and Videos.

With a lot of amazingValentine’s Day specialoffers there is addition-ally a Diamond ring of-fered to the winner ofLove Meter, based onsending as many SMS toincrease chances of win-ning. Furthermore, withSong Dedication service,lucky winners can winFree Air Time as theydedicate songs to theirloved ones. Warid alsodressed its website withthe Valentine’s Day Offerand updated the OfficialWarid Facebook page tomake this Valentine’sDay special.n

Islamabad: Following its tradi-tion of providing state-of-the-art tele-com services to the nation, PakistanTelecommunication Company Limit-ed (PTCL) has brought to its cus-tomers a fascinating ‘Jadoo Box’ – a

novelty device that gives uninter-rupted connectivity on wired DSL aswell as backup wireless.

Starting from Rs.4,999 only, thethree unbeatable ‘Jadoo Box’ packagesare also available on easy install-ments. Moreover customers can makefree On-Net calls from PTCL to PTCLand to Vfone. Moreover, customers canget an EVO Nitro USB device ab-solutely free with 1Mbps DSL.

“PTCL’s Jadoo Box will capitalizeon the uninterrupted connectivityneeds of our valued customers,” saidSenior Executive Vice President Com-mercial, Naveed Saeed. “This cutting-edge new product providing limitlessconnectivity will firmly establishPTCL as the only integrated telecomsolutions company of Pakistan.” n

Islamabad: Jazz in-troduces Apna Back-ground Music servicewhich allows you to set-upa background music or ef-fect of your own choice toplay in the backgroundduring your calls. You canhave different back-ground music for differentfriends or family. Onceyou have the service acti-vated you can easily makea background music callby dialing 22 followed bythe callers numbers e.g.2203xx1234567. n

Karachi: Warid Tele-com recently announcedits Karachi Offer ‘Bol UthaKarachi’ in which peoplein Karachi can make freeand unlimited calls to allWarid numbers from12am till 12pm with thedaily rental of only Rs.3.99+t. This amazing offercan be subscribed by bothexisting and new Karachibased subscribers by send-ing “KHI” in SMS to 4337.This limited time offer isfor prepaid subscribersonly and will automati-cally be renewed daily atmidnight. n

Islamabad: Competi-tive Commission of Pak-istan (CCP) is working onanti-competitive cases intelecom sector against cel-lular phone operators,LDIs, broadband DSLservices.

Senior Joint Director ofCCP Nadia Nabi, said thiswhile giving briefing of thecases in different sectors tothe participants of Com-petitive ConsultativeGroup. The meeting wasalso attended by official ofPakistan Telecommunica-tion Authority (PTA).would be made public afterlegal proceeding and dif-ferent inquiries. n

Islamabad: Onceagain Ufone has lived upto its reputation of de-lighting the customerswith extreme value propo-sitions. Ufone, being oneof the most affordabletelecom providers in theindustry has launched a‘10 Second package’ whichis specifically designedfor value-seeking cus-tomers who make quickand short calls. Thispackage is an easy alter-native to missed calls,brief work related con-versations and quick up-dates etc. The low rateswill enable customers tooptimize their expendi-ture and get the mostvalue for their money bymaking a quick impactfulcall rather than sending atext message.

Ufone has once againsuccessfully reinforced itsstance as a customer cen-tric organization by in-troducing this offer whichis expected to create rip-ples in the market.

Speaking on thelaunch Akbar Khan,Chief Marketing Officerat Ufone said, “Ufone hasalways been conscious ofthe requirements of theend users and the 10 sec-ond package reinstatesthe organizations stanceas being customer-cen-tric. Ufone has lived up toits reputation by intro-ducing another ‘first’ inthe market as currentlythis is a one of its kind of-fer in the industry. We arevery proud to be able toserve the communicationneeds our valued cus-tomers”. n

Islamabad: Pakistan Telecommu-nication Company Limited (PTCL) haslaunched an exciting Vfone 'DoubleBalance' offer for its customers torecharge their Vfone accounts and getan additional free balance equal to theload amount.

Applicable for WIN subscribers,the Vfone Double Balance offer allowsthose customers who have not

recharged their accounts since August31, 2011 to re-load and get an addi-tional free balance equal to the loadamount absolutely free.

Not just that, Vfone customerscan use the free balance acquiredthrough this offer for on-net calling, In-ternet and SMS to on-net and off-netnetworks for 30 days.

"PTCL continues to provide themost affordable packages and specialoffers to its customers in the market,"said PTCL Senior Executive Vice

President Commercial, Naveed Saeed."With our latest Double Balance offer,we have made 24/7 connectivity pos-sible at the lowest rates in the indus-try for all Vfone customers."

PTCL Vfone has the country'slargest WLL coverage offering pre-paid and post-paid options that aresupported by high-speed Internetwith CDMA 1x technology.

Customers can avail the facility ofSMS, unlimited free calls from Vfoneto Vfone and an exciting Smart pack-age, which offers extremely low rateof just Rs.1.30/min for any networkanytime.

"The Vfone Double Balance offer isaimed at increasing Vfone's active cus-tomer base, enhancing its usage andfor longer customer retention," saidExecutive Vice President WirelessBusiness, Omar Khalid. n

Lahore: Punjab Chief MinisterMuhammad Shahbaz Sharif has an-nounced that laptops will be given toteachers showing excellent perform-ance for their encouragement andimproving a standard of education.

He was talking to a delegation ofPunjab Professors and Lecturers As-sociation led by its president Dr ZahidAhmad. Provincial Law Minister RanaSanaullah, Special Assistant SyedZaeem Hussain Qadri, MPA and sec-retaries of Finance, Law and HigherEducation were also present.

Talking to the delegation, the chiefminister said teachers played keyrole in imparting knowledge and the

Punjab government was taking solidmeasures for improving educationsector and the affairs of teachingcommunity. Referring to service struc-ture of teachers, he announced that 10seats would be allocated for collegeteachers in Grade 21 out of which fivewill be for male and five for femaleteachers. He also gave approval to im-proving the 4-tier formula regardingpromotion of college teachers.

He said solution of genuine prob-lems of teachers was the responsibil-ity of the government, however, theteaching community should play itsrole in imparting knowledge to younggeneration. n

Ufone MyTunes,personalized ringtones

Jazz introducesBackground Musicduring calls

Ufone’s10second offertakes themarket by storm

PTCL doubles up its Vfonepackage offer

Warid makes Valentine’sDay special

PTCL creates “Jadoo Box” forendless connectivityWarid brings

amazingKarachi offer

CCP works ontelecom sector

Teachers to get laptops, says Shahbaz

57


Islamabad: Pakistan Telecom-munications Company Limited(PTCL) has successfully trained115 of its senior executives throughan ongoing dynamic senior man-agement program “The SevenHabits of Highly Effective People”pioneered by world-renowned U.S.expert, Stephen R. Covey.

“I congratulate our executiveson this achievement,” said SeniorExecutive Vice President HR, Mr.Syed Mazhar Hussain while ad-dressing participants at the certifi-cate distribution ceremony held atPTCL Academy, Islamabad. “PTCLstrongly believes that its talentedand loyal employees are the Com-pany’s most precious asset. We arecommitted to the professional de-velopment of our employees beyondtheir current job. Thus, we are of-fering various opportunities fortheir learning, career growth andsocial mobility”.

A comprehensive three-daystraining program organized byPTCL’s Training & Developmentdepartment in collaboration withM/S Frankline Covey, ‘The 7Habits’ workshop helped partici-pants to improve their perform-ance by endeavoring at the highestlevels of effectiveness and team-

work. Each habit was divided intosegments and principles. Withworkshop facilitators’ help, partici-pants applied their learningthrough case studies, group discus-sions, role-playing and reflectivethinking.

Mr. Hussain applauded the ef-forts carried out by PTCL’s Train-

ing & Development team for mak-ing the program an exceptionallybeneficial experience for its partic-ipants. The trainees highly appre-ciated the program’s exceptionalcontent and captivating methodol-ogy, declaring it as one of the besttraining programs they ever at-tended.

“We have a large training infra-structure spread throughout thecountry and we are investing heav-ily in our employees’ professionaldevelopment through varioustraining activities,” said ShahzadSafdar Khan, Executive Vice Pres-ident, Talent Management &Learning. “Through successful ini-tiatives like the Management De-velopment Program, we arecommitted to making PTCL a ‘cus-tomer-focused corporate organiza-tion’ by undertaking spectacularhuman resource development.” n


National

58

PTCL trains 115 senior executives for high effectiveness

Successful participants of ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” recently conducted by Stephen R. Covey forsenior managers of Pakistan Telecommunications Company Ltd (PTCL) with SEVP HR, Syed Mazhar Hussain

(center) at the PTCL Academy.

Lahore: Pakistan International Air-lines (PIA) and Airbus signed anagreement for transfer of ownershipof Six A310 aircraft which were ac-quired by the airline on lease inyear 2004. Transfer of ownership ofthe six aircraft to National FlagCarrier is another step forward inimplementing the Business Planunder vision 2020 and will helpPIA save about 2 million Dollarsmonthly rentals which will helpgreatly in reducing its losses.. The agreement was signed byManaging Director PIA, Mr.Nadeem Khan Yousufzai and Di-rector Asset Management Airbus,Mr. Patrice De Puymorin partici-pated by Deputy Managing Direc-tor PIA, Mr. Salim Sayani, DirectorCorporate Planning, Mr. IrshadGhani,, Othman Ghedira, Sale Di-rector Airbus Middle East, PascalLesaulnier Vice President - Inter-national Development Middle EastEADS and other senior officials ofPIA. MD PIA appreciating the efforts ofboth the teams finalizing the agree-ment said that Pakistan Interna-tional Airlines and EADS have along relationship. It started withthe induction of A300-B4 in early80’s and was strengthened furtherby the purchase of A310 Aircraft in1991. ATR42-500, another productof sister concern of Airbus bothworking under the umbrella ofEADS have added another knot to

the ties. n

Islamabad: The Federal Investi-gation Agency (FIA) has taken intocustody 11 employees, including twoofficers of Nadra, after a report thataired on a private TV channel ex-posed Pakistan TelecommunicationAuthortiy’s (PTA) incompetence inregistering mechanism of mobilesubscriber identity module (SIM)cards, according to reports. The re-port had shown how a mobile SIMwas registered and activated byusing particulars of Interior Minis-ter Rehman Malik.

The interior ministry swung intoaction after this and rounded up fiveNadra officials from different partsof the country. The agency furtherextended its investigation circle andheld 11 more employees of the regis-tration authority. n

PIA inksagreementwith Airbus

11 Nadraofficials arrestedSIM scam

Peshawar, Atd to get IT parks

wi-tribe launches wi-cam service in KICS-UET

Each Pakistani eats 67 eggs annually

The provincial information tech-nology department acquired 25,000square feet space in Peshawar’sDeans Trade Centre for settingup an information technology park.Establishment of a similar park isalso planned in Abbottabad.

The government had announcedestablishment of the two IT parkslast year to diversify its investmentportfolio and promote information

technology sector.KPITB managing director Am-

jad Shahid Afridi, on the occasionsaid that the government had al-located Rs1 billion for the projectfor the next five years and agreedto release it at once to prevent theproject from possible interruptionsin case of any change in politicaldispensation.n

Lahore: The dean faculty offisheries and wildlife of the Uni-versity of Veterinary and AnimalSciences (UVAS) Prof. Dr Muham-mad Akram has said that egg con-sumption in Pakistan is 67 perperson per year which is far lessthan 350 eggs in advanced coun-tries.

Speaking at a seminar, he said

egg consumption in India was 92per person per year and it was pro-ducing 2,740,000 million eggsevery year while Pakistan had aproduction of 12,800 million eggs,he added.

He said eggs promoted healthyhair and nails because of highsulpher content and vitamins andminerals. n

Karachi: wi-tribe Pakistan andAl-Khawarizmi Institute of Com-puter Science, University of Engi-neering and Technology(KICS-UET) unveiled ‘wi-cam’ atool to remotely debug CPEs.

wi-cam, a CPE (Customer Prem-ises Equipment) Management andAdministration tool, developed bystudents and graduates of KICS-UET using open-source technology,allows broadband companies to re-motely configure and manageCPEs, while receiving instant noti-fications and access to live data.

Not only does this result in animproved customer care experience,it also enables customers to con-tinue enjoying seamless connectiv-ity.

wi-tribe entered into a strategicpublic-private partnership withKICS-UET to conceive, develop andlaunch a fully funded research and

development program, enabling theinnovation of this breakthroughfeature-rich management tool.

With wi-cam, wi-tribe and UETjointly demonstrate that sourcinglocal development of critical cus-tomer service innovation is not onlypossible, but also essential to theproliferation of technical capabili-ties within Pakistan.

“At wi-tribe, we thrive on the po-tential of the Pakistani youth andare eager to foster innovative ideasthat can elevate the local IT indus-try to international standards. Withremote CPE management capabili-ties, providing real-time updatesand support allows wi-tribe to stayfocused on customer satisfaction”,said Dr. Tanveer-ul-Haq, Vice Pres-ident Technical at wi-tribe Pak-istan.

“At KICS-UET, researchers arekeen on capitalizing open source

technologies and developing cost ef-fective solutions for local telecomand IT industry. wi-cam is a prod-uct built with local talent and it hashelped KICS-UET researchers bet-ter understand software needs ofthe telecom industry. With theseleading steps we foresee significantgrowth in such collaborativearrangement in telecom industry inPakistan”, said Dr. Waqar Mah-mood, Director KICS-UET.

Lt. Gen. (R) Muhammad AkramKhan, Vice-Chancellor of UET, said“This is an achievement, not just forUET and wi-tribe, but for the entiretelecom industry. KICS-UET is ex-tremely proud of this successful col-laboration with wi-tribe and looksforward to continuing the partner-ship. wi-cam is innovation broughtto life by Pakistani students andgraduates, showcasing local capa-bilities.” n

Karachi: Sindh ITDepartment is develop-ing a global informa-tion system (GIS)portal encompassingall the potential sectorsand strength of Sindhprovince which wouldbring economic boom ifproperly tapped.

This was stated bythe Secretary Informa-tion Technology De-partment, SualehAhmed Faruqui whilespeaking at the semi-nar, jointly organisedby Karachi Chamber of

Commerce & Industry(KCCI) and Informa-tion Technology Min-istry's National ICTR&D Fund on "ICT Ap-plication in Pakistan".

He commended

KCCI for organizingseminar and said itwas need of the day. Heurged to formalize thetrend and underscoredthe need to regular or-ganizing of seminarswith the interaction ofFederal and ProvincialMinistry of Informa-tion Technology.

Chief Executive Of-ficer, National ICTR&D Fund, Dr. SyedAun Abbas said that asper the decision of theParliament, some per-centage of contribution

given by telecom com-panies was accorded tothe fund and so farmore than 50 projectshave been funded fromthis contribution.

He agreed to coop-

erate and likely fund-ing of the KCCI's proj-ect and the Sindh I.T.Departments GIS por-tal project which willbenn accordance withthe specified fundingmechanism. He alsoendorsed the formationof committee compris-ing of representativesfrom Federal & Provin-cial Ministries of I.T.and KCCI.

KCCI presidentMian Abrar Ahmad as-serted upon the need totake the maximum ad-

vantage of the informa-tion andcommunication tech-nology to explore mar-ket access of countriesaround the globe. n

Sindh IT department developing GIS

Intel Pakistanmarked the end of itsnational science compe-tition by announcingthe winners of the IntelNational Science Fair,who will go on to repre-sent Pakistan at theIntel International Sci-ence & EngineeringFair (ISEF) 2012, to beheld in Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania, USA.

The grand winnersof the Intel NationalScience Fair are; ShizaGhulab, Mahnoor Has-

san and Bushra Sha-hed from Institute ofComputer and Man-agement Sciences, Pe-shawar. The individualwinners are; MusaRahim Khan fromAgha Khan HigherSecondary School, Chi-tral and Syed ShahzebHussain from ArmyPublic School and Col-lege, Command andStaff College, Quetta.

“Intel recognizesthat curiosity, criticalthinking and a strong

foundation in math andscience are necessaryfor tomorrow’s work-force to compete for thehigh-tech jobs of the fu-ture. The National Sci-ence Fair encourageshigh school students toembrace and exploretheir interests in thesesubjects, and pursuepaths that may lead tosolving the world’smost pressing issues,”said Naveed Siraj,country manager atIntel Pakistan. n


59

Islamabad: Pak-istan's largest cellularservice provider, Mo-bilink, expressed its de-sire to go for a bid overthe 3G telecommunica-tion services.

This was stated byCEO and President Mo-bilink Rashid Khanwhile addressing thenews conference and in-formed the firm wasconsidering to bid forthe license.

He said the firm "isevaluating the informa-tion memorandum of

3G spectrum and hasdecided to participate inthe bidding".

He also mentionedthat despite the globalrecession, there wasstill a huge potential forcellular business inPakistan.

The telecom sectorsupervisory body has al-lowed a maximum num-ber of three licenses for3G services and as perthe agreement, a firmcannot bid for morethan two spectrums.

Mobilink is the mar-

ket leader in Pakistancellular industry andhas captured one-thirdof the total market. Mo-bilink along with Ufone,another leading mobilecompany operating inPakistan have alreadybought the equipmentsfrom Huawei to up-grade their hardware to3G.

It is expected thatthe Government willgenerate almost Rs.75billion ($833) throughthe auction scheduled inMarch, 2012. n ISLAMABAD: President and CEO Mobilink, Rashid Khan addressing a press conference.

Islamabad: In a sus-tained effort to redefinete lecommunicat ionusage in Pakistan bybringing value to thelives of its customers,PTCL has tapped intothe charisma of ReemaKhan, in its newlylaunched ’Life in Mo-tion’ strategic cam-paign.

The telecom giant’snew ’Life in Motion’campaign depictsscenes from the life ofan enterprisingcelebrity who success-fully navigates herbusy schedule roundthe clock with the helpof PTCL’s convergedand innovative commu-nications solutions.

Whether it is plug-ging 3G EVO Donglefor connectivity whileriding a car; or usingEVO Wi-Fi Cloud toconnect multiple de-vices simultaneouslywith Internet at an out-door shoot; or makingcalls across the countrywith Vfone wirelessfrom a remote studio;or video-chatting with

family on Video Con; orupdating FaceBookstatus on EVO Tabfrom an airport lounge;or watching missedepisodes of a favoriteshow in high-definitionon Smart TV, the ’Lifein Motion’ campaignshows PTCL customersa revolutionary rangeof products and serv-ices needed to compli-ment and complete aneveryday busy life.

"PTCL is proud tobe Pakistan’s only inte-grated, most reliableand largest convergedtelecommunicationsoperator providing cut-ting-edge services andproducts to consumersand businesses all overthe country," said Sen-ior Executive VicePresident, NaveedSaeed. "The ’Life inMotion’ campaign cre-atively portrays theidea of a social hub thatPTCL creates for abusy person through itsintegrated and com-plete telecommunica-tion solutions." n

Islamabad: The rev-enue of telecom opera-tors in Pakistanswelled to an all-timehigh of Rs363 billion in2011, registering aboost of 5.4 percentcompared to the previ-ous year, according to areport published by thePakistan Telecom Au-thority. During the fis-cal year 2011, cellularrevenues went up by 11percent to reachRs.262,761 million incomparison toRs236,047 million in2010.

The telecom sectoralso made its highestever contribution to thenational exchequer in2011, as approximatelyRs117 billion were de-posited by telecomcompanies and the PTAwith a growth of 7 per-cent.

The cellular mobilesector also proved to bethe lead contributor asthe telecom sector in-vested a total of $495.8million in the fiscalyear. n

PTCL unveils its new ’Life inMotion’ campaign

Telecom earnsall-time highrevenue in 2011

Mobilink eying PTA's 3G bid

Intel declares winners of National Science Fair

Lahore: Lahore reg-istered a growth of 17percent in Sales overlast year. This was stat-ed in the MarketingConference held to ap-

preciate the perform-ance of top twentyAgents of which tenwere IATA Agents andten PSAs – PassengerSales Agents.

PIA discussed thestrategy for next yearand assured full sup-port and commitment tothe Travel Agents so thattogether they take PIAto greater heights andachieve benefits for allstakeholders.

PIA has revised andreduced Refund Chargeson International routesfrom Rs 13000/ to RS.8000/. PIA has also si-multaneously revisedand decreased COB (Change of Booking)charges on its Interna-tional flights fromRs.8000/ to Rs. 4000/.NoShow charges for pas-sengers traveling to In-ternational destina-

tionns have been re-duced from Rs.13000 toRs.6000/.

The meeting waschaired by Advisor / Con-sultant Mr. Haider Jalaland attended by Maj.Khurram Mushtaq Gen-eral Manager Passen-ger Sales, Mr. TahirNiaz GM Revenue Man-agement, Mr. NaveedDGM Pakistan, DMLahore, Mr. AsadullahGhauri Manager Pas-senger Sales Corporate,Mr. M. Shafiq PassengerSales Manager, Assis-tant Passenger SalesManager Dr. Muqadamand other marketing of-ficials. n

Islamabad: Sub-Committee of the Sen-ate Standing Commit-tee on Information Tech-nology (IT) and Telecom-munication urged theUniversal ServicesFund (USF) to ensuretransparency in the bid-ding process besidescomprehensive mecha-

nism for monitoring theprojects.

The committee methere under the chair-manship of Senator Za-hid Khan to ascertainwhether the specifica-tions as advertised intenders for invitation ofbids were to benefit anyspecific vendor or oth-

erwise.Members of the com-

mittee suggested re-vamping the USF boardof Directors by givingrepresentation to par-liamentarians and Fed-eral Union of Journal-ists. Moreover, it alsosuggested that compa-nies having represen-

tation on Board of Di-rectors should not par-ticipate in the biddingprocess. The Sub-Com-mittee, however, decid-ed to hold thorough con-sultation with all mem-bers of the committeebefore finalizing any rec-ommendation in this re-gard. n

Obopay, Warid Telecom jointlylaunch Warid Pesa in Uganda

Lahore tops PIA sales

Body asks USF to ensure transparency in bidding

Obopay, a mobilepayments companyheadquartered in theUS state of California,has partnered withWarid Telecom, a Pak-istan-based cellularphone service provider,to launch a mobilebanking and paymentservice in Ugandacalled Warid Pesa.Warid Pesa allows cus-tomers to transfermoney to other peopleand merchants, requestmoney, obtain state-ments, obtain account

balances, change per-sonal identity numbersand top up prepaidphones for themselvesor others.

The Warid Pesa plat-form can be used on anycellular device, includ-ing pre-paid mobilephones. Clients can ac-cess services via textmessage, interactivevoice response or wire-less access point.Deepak Chandnani, theCEO of Obopay, addsthat “optimum securityhas been provided forpayment transactions toensure that there is nomoney laundering andthe users’ hard earnedmoney is safe.”

Obopay currently of-fers services in NorthAmerica, Kenya, Sene-gal and India. WaridTelecom has branchesin Pakistan,Bangladesh, Ugandaand the Congo. n


60

Islamabad: Pak-istan’s fastest growingprivate airline, Airblue,is proud to announce anaddition to its global air-line network with thelaunch of new flightsfrom Islamabad to Is-tanbul, Turkey. Airbluewill operate 3 new flightsa week – Tuesday, Thurs-day, and Sunday – from

Islamabad to Istanbul,and Istanbul to Man-chester through SabihaGokcen Airport in Istan-bul.

Mr. Raheel Ahmed,Airblue GM Commer-cial, says: “With thelaunch of flights to Is-tanbul, Airblue hasachieved yet anothermilestone in its journey

as a pioneer in air trav-el. This new service is astep towards increasedlinks between Pakistan,Turkey, and Europe. Weare extremely gratefulfor the exceptional sup-port and co-operation re-ceived from the TurkishCivil Aviation and ISGSabiha Gokcen authori-ties”. n

Islamabad: PakistanTelecommunicationCompany Limited(PTCL) leads all opera-tors in wireline broad-band category of 1 Mbpsquality of service survey(QoS) conducted by Pak-istan TelecommunicationAuthority (PTA). PTCLis placed in category A atLahore, Rawalpindi, Pe-

shawar and Quetta andin category B at Karachi.According to a statementof PTA for 1Mbps broad-band package of wire-less broadband serviceproviders, Wateen Tele-com has been placed incategory A at Lahore andRawalpindi and catego-ry B at Karachi, Quettaand Peshawar. Similar-

ly, Qubee and WorldCallare also in category A atLahore and category B atKarachi and Wi-Tribe isin category B atRawalpindi.

PTA carried out thesecond nationwidebroadband QoS survey ofall wireless and wirelineservice providersthroughout the country

during the third andfourth quarter of 2011.During the survey the al-ready devised QoS KeyPerformance Indicators(KPIs) in consultationwith services providerswere measured. KPIswere network availabil-ity, service availability,download and uploadbandwidth speed, howmuch data a subscribercan receive or send to themaximum, round-trip

time, the time taken forthe data to reach a par-ticular destination andreturn, contention ratio,the ratio of total band-width and number ofsubscribers or numberof subscribers per unit ofbandwidth and retainability, for how muchtime a connection re-mained connected dur-ing the period of 60 min-utes. n

Karachi: Nokia Pak-istan announced thatArif Shafique, previ-ously Head of Sales,Nokia Pakistan andAfghanistan has beenpromoted to the positionof General Manager(GM), Nokia Pakistanand Afghanistan.Backed by more thanfour years of experiencewith in Nokia Pakistan,

coupled with his overall20 years of work experi-ence, Arif has an in-depth understanding ofcompany’s critical man-agement processes andis one of the few em-ployees to have been as-sociated with the com-pany since its inceptionin Pakistan, says a pressrelease.

He played a key role

in taking Nokia brandto the next level in Pak-istan, helping the over-all telecom sector toflourish in the processas well. Under his ableleadership, Nokia hasachieved several notablemilestones in Pakistan,most important of thembeing record-breakingsales last year. n

Yasmin Masood hastaken up additionalcharge of Pakistan Soft-ware Exports Bureau(PSEB) as ManagingDirector after ImranZia’s departure. She isJoint Secretary Adminpresently at Ministry ofInformation Technology

and Telecommunication(MoITT) and likely tolook after affairs atPSEB until the selec-tion of new MD is com-pleted.

The government hasalready advertised thevacancy announcementfor post of MD PSEB. n

Karachi: Intel Cor-poration announced to-day its fastest solid-state drive (SSD) todate, the Intel® Solid-State Drive 520 Series,a 6 gigabit-per-second(gbps) SATA III SSDproduced using Intelcomputer-quality 25-nanometer (nm) NANDmemory process tech-nology aimed at deliv-ering world-class.n

Airblue launches new destination

PTCL leads PTA QoS survey

Nokia appoints new GM

Yasmin takes additionalPSEB portfolio

Intel introduces SSD520 series drives

Mr Haider Jalal Advisor / Consultant addressing Travel Agents and PIAMarketing officials alongwith Maj. Khurram Mushtaq General Manager

Passenger Sales Marketing officals.

Scholars ask to boycott Facebook Babar publishes researchon digital forensic science

Punjab govt, Google signMoU to promote tourism

PTCL trains 29 managementtrainees in technology


61

wi-tribe has launchedbeta version of softwareportal with an aim to of-fer local developers anopportunity to sell theirsoftware to local as wellas global audience.

With first of its kindinitiative, wi-tribe is seek-ing developers to getthemselves enlisted withwi-tribe to start sellingtheir software in variouscategories.

Anyone can buy/down-load software from wi-tribe Bazaar, by payingfor the software by usingwi-tribe scratch cards,available within Islam-abad, Rawalpindi, La-

hore, Karachi and Faisal-abad, in denominations ofRs.100, Rs.250, Rs.500and Rs.1000.

Currently the Bazaaris in beta and has limitedsoftware available on it.But sure you can goahead browse the cate-gories and get softwareyou need. n

Islamabad: Intellec-tuals and scholars haveurged Muslims to useMillat Facebook, a Mus-lims alternative to theUS Facebook, saying theyshould boycott products ofthe countries and organ-izations involved in blas-phemy of the HolyProphet (SAW).

Muslim leaders at around table conferencehave claimed that the so-cial networking website,Facebook, which hadbeen adamant on hostinga blasphemous page in

the name of freedom ofspeech, was callously ig-noring the annoyance ofthe whole Muslim world.

Speaking at the con-ference "Blasphemy byFacebook and the Role ofMuslim Youth on SocialMedia", hosted by ownersof Millat Facebook, aMuslim alternative to the

US Facebook at Ham-dard center, the speakersslammed the country'spseudo intellectuals and

TV analysts who, theysaid, had been followingthe footsteps of Facebookby advocating the abol-ishment or amendmentto the country's Blasphe-my laws. n

Islamabad: BabarIqbal, a 14 year old kidfrom Dera Ismail Khan,has set a world record bypublishing his first re-search paper on digitalforensic science. The fieldof Digital Forensic Sci-ence covers the recoveryand investigation of datain digital devices and isoften used to aid com-puter crime investiga-tions.

Babar’s research per-

tains to Apple iDevices(iPad, iPhone, iPod) andhas been accepted by the8th IEEE InternationalConference on Innova-tions in Information Tech-nology. He has been in-vited to present his re-search at the conferenceas well.

What sets his methodapart is that it doesn’t re-quire jailbreaking andcan image an iDevice inless than 30 minutes. n

Lahore: A memoran-dum of understandingwas signed between Pun-jab government andGoogle for co-operationin information technolo-gy sector at Arfa Soft-ware Technology Park.

According to theagreement, Google willprovide access to histori-cal and tourist attrac-tions of the province onInternet, to create world-wide awareness aboutthe rich heritage of theprovince.

Tourism Secretary DrAllah Bakhsh Malik andWilliam Fitzgerald ofGoogle Asia signed thedocument in the pres-ence of Punjab Chief Min-ister Mohammad Shah-

baz Sharif, Provincial Fi-nance Minister KamranMichael, Chairman Plan-ning & Development,Secretary Irrigation,Chairman InformationTechnology Board andrepresentatives of Google.

Speaking on the occa-sion, the Punjab ChiefMinister welcomed theagreement with Googlefor co-operation in infor-mation technology andsaid that access to thehistorical and tourist sitesof Punjab through Googlemailing and internetwould promote aware-ness about the modernand ancient Lahore aswell as its historical andcultural heritage. n

Islamabad: PakistanTelecommunication Com-pany Limited (PTCL) hassuccessfully trained 29young engineers as man-agement trainees and fu-ture leaders of tomorrowwho posses sound knowl-

edge of the telecom giantas well as the telecom-munications industry of

Pakistan.A group of 29 young

engineers selected fromall over the country weretrained as PTCL Man-agement Trainees in anintensive six-week train-ing program held atPTCL Telecom Staff Col-lege in Haripur.

"PTCL takes specialinterest in developing ex-ceptional human capitalto meet the challengingneeds of today's compet-itive marketplace," saidSenior Executive Presi-dent, Syed Mazhar Hus-sain. "Our managementtrainees' program is animportant initiative to

provide a unique and ex-hilarating learning expe-rience to newly inductedmembers in the Compa-ny."

"PTCL takes a specialpride in training itsyoung leaders so theymay become dynamic andproductive in all spheresof life," said General Man-ager Training & Devel-opment, Ahmed Jalal."We believe that if youngprofessionals exert moreduring their formativephase, they can emergeas thorough profession-als. PTCL wants to be thefirst institution to givethem this opportunity." n

Lahore: Mobilink hasdeveloped and imple-mented an innovativecontent-filtering solutionto reinstate internetservices for the Black-Berry Internet Service(BIS).

The initiative by Mo-bilink allows subscribersto fully access the inter-net, including social net-working sites such as

Facebook and Twitter,using their mobile de-vices.

Omar Manzur, Di-rector PR & CSR, high-lighted, “Customer sat-isfaction is an essentialdriver at Mobilink, andthis content filtering so-lution is our initiativeto restore full function-ality of internet servicesfor our valued customers,

while maintaining PTAregulations.”

Mobilink pioneeredthe provision of Black-Berry services in Pak-istan in 2005. The serv-ice had been partiallyblocked in 2010 followingdirectives from the PTAto block social network-ing sites and other web-sites that contained blas-phemous content. n

Lahore: SamsungElectronics CompanyLtd., recently held a spe-cial Prize-Distributionceremony for the Sam-sung Cameras Promo-tional Offer in Lahore.Mr. Zunair Sattar fromLahore was rewardedwith a brand new Sam-sung LCD Television, asthe first prize.

To promote the inno-vative, sleek and fea-ture-rich cameras bySamsung, a special con-sumer engagement ini-tiative waslaunched.Each customer

of Samsung Cameraswas given a Scratch-Card, which provided anopportunity to win fabu-lous prizes including acutting edge LCD TV.

Samsung Pakistan’sManaging Director, Mr.

John Park said; “Theprize offer on Samsung

Cameras has actively en-gaged the fans andachieved an enormousresponse from the mar-ket. I congratulate Mr.Zunair Sattar on win-ning the revolutionaryLCD Television while en-joying his stylish Sam-sung camera”.

The prize distribu-tion ceremony held atthe Samsung Lahore of-fice was attended by sen-ior management of Sam-sung Gulf Electronicsand the management ex-ecutives of Orient Elec-tronics. n

Lahore: SchneiderElectric, a global spe-cialist in energy man-agement, announced itsparticipation in theWhite House’s BetterBuildings Challenge,pledging a commitmentto reduce the energy useof 9 million square feet ofits own building space,covering 40 differentplants, by 25 percent. Acomponent of the BetterBuildings Initiative

launched by the WhiteHouse in February, theChallenge calls on chiefexecutive officers, uni-versity presidents, andstate and local leaders tocreate American jobsthrough energy efficien-cy.

“This program is agreat example of thepublic-private partner-ships that will be inte-gral in steering our na-tion toward a more effi-

cient and secure future,”said Chris Curtis, NorthAmerican CEO ofSchneider Electric.“We’re reducing energy,but we’re also puttingpeople to work – creatingjobs through the in-creased engineering andconstruction activity re-quired to actively man-age energy and createbenchmarks. It’s a win-win.” n

Mobilink develops content-filtering solution

wi-tribelaunches wi-tribe Bazaar

Samsung rewards its camera customer with LCD TV

Schneider Electric announcesleadership commitment

Etihad Airways carries a record numberof passengers in 2011

Lahore: Etihad Airways, the na-tional airline of the United Arab Emi-rates, carried a record 8.29 million pas-sengers in 2011, a 17 per cent increaseon the previous year. The jump rep-resented an extra 1.197 million pas-sengers on the carrier’s global networkcovering 82 passenger and cargo des-tinations.

Etihad Airways President andChief Executive Officer, Mr James

Hogan, said. “This result, achievedwhile much of the world was facing theeconomic crunch and oil prices re-mained high, is testament to ouremergence as a formidable force in theinternational aviation arena. Throughstrategic expansion we launched eightnew routes to Bangalore, Maldives,Seychelles, Chengdu, Dusseldorf,Tripoli, Shanghai and Nairobi lastyear. n

Lahore: Abu DhabiGroup has planned tolaunch an independentmobile financial servicescompany through join-venture of Bank Alfalahand Warid, an officialpress statement said.

The group will enterinto Pakistan’s mobile-banking industry withcombination of two sub-sidiaries that will devel-op a branchless and elec-tronic eco-system com-prising products and val-ue proposition for mer-chants, businesses, con-sumers and the govern-ment sector.

Ali Abbas Sikanderwill be heading the mo-bile-banking wing of AbuDhabi Group. He workedwith prominent interna-tional banks and led suc-cessful e-banking andbranchless banking proj-ects earlier in Pakistanand abroad.

The name of servicebrand has not been ex-posed clearly, howeverthere will be number ofsmall businesses and em-ployment generated andrapid transactions ofmoney will be carriedout easily.

ADG is one of largestinvestors in Pakistan andhas been operating inthe country since 1997.The group companieshave over $6.5 billion in

total assets in Pakistan.ADG has invested inbanking, telecommuni-cations, real estate, in-surance, sugar, assetmanagement and healthcare sectors.

“It should be a matterof great comfort and sat-isfaction for our bank-ing and telecom cus-tomers that their re-spective facilitators sharea common vision to pro-vide mobile based finan-cial services which areconvenient, need basedand secure”, Atif Bajwa,CEO, Bank Alfalah said.I am sure this will proveto be a very positive steptowards the economicand social development ofthe country and for con-sumer financial access.

Muneer Farooqui,CEO Warid Telecom stat-ed that Pakistan tele-com industry has showntremendous growth overthe recent past, and nowwith the introduction ofmobile financial servicesour subscribers will beequipped with highly ac-cessible and convenienttechnology beyond tra-ditional bank branches toensure the much neededfinancial inclusion in thiscountry.

Pakistan is consid-ered as model for mo-bile-banking services inthe world as the sectorhas witnessed significantgrowth in utility by thecustomers through relia-bility, confidence andpreference.


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Lahore: SamsungElectronics CompanyLtd., has launched a newonline offer, whereby as-piring artists, modelsand actors are being giv-en a chance to become apart of Samsung’s nextAdvertising campaign.

This offer is beingpresented to the young,vibrant and talented peo-ple with good creativeskills and a pleasant per-sonal aura. Social mediawebsite facebook is beingused to promote thiscampaign and reach outto the right segment. So-cial media is significant-ly influencing onlineusers business behavior.It is another platformwhich is playing a criti-cal role in enhancing anorganization’s image.

The winning partici-pants will be engaged tocontribute in the new vi-ral advertising cam-paign, being developed

by Samsung. The youngtalent will walking onthe “Red Carpet” to comeinto the glamorous shoot,full of “Lights”, “Camera”and “Action” for theyoungsters.

Shehryar Khalid,Samsung Pakistan said;

“Samsung invites allthose young aspiring ac-tors and models who arebrimming with confi-dence and dream to en-ter the glitz and glamourof the advertising world,with one of the biggest

brands in the world. Thisis your chance to fea-ture in the next GalaxySmartphones video.

Samsung has alreadybeen featured as themost popular consumer-electronics companyamong the 5.8 million

“facebook” users in Pak-istan. During recentmonths, more than180,000 internet usershave expressed their ap-preciation for Samsung’sonline branding activi-ties and products. n

Chief Minister Pun-jab Shahbaz Sharif haslaunched the free lap-top scheme in Punjab,under which 110,000 freelaptops will be givenaway to bright studentsin the province.

During a launch cer-emony at Punjab Uni-versity Lahore, Mr.

Sharif announced thatgiveaway of 110,000 lap-tops started from Feb-ruary 2nd, 2012 inRahim Yar Khan andwill run district wise tocomplete the delivery inwhole province by end ofMarch.

He mentioned thatPunjab Government

spent Rs. 4 bil-lion for 110,000free laptops,while another300,000 laptopsare likely to beapproved for freegiveaway nextyear.

Chief Minis-ter also unveiledhis plans for pro-viding free inter-net connection athome for stu-dents, however,he said that pro-cedures are be-ing worked outto achieve the

project.He announced that

whole of Punjab Univer-sity and its campuseswill be equipped withWiFi for free andportable internet access.It is likely that othergovernment universitieswill be converted intosuch hotspots as well. n

Samsung offers a fabulousopportunity for aspiring actors

Punjab CM launches free laptops tobrilliant students

Warid-Bank Alfalah to launchbranchless banking

3G auction attracts $1billion: Governor SBP

Government of Pak-istan has blocked morethan 13,000 sites in thecountry, which is the ac-cess to pornographic oradult nature, the Parlia-mentary Secretary for In-formation Technology,Nawab Liaqat Ali Khansaid this while respond-ing to pointing to the Na-tional Assembly of thenotice.

It is here worth men-tioning that PakistanTelecommunication Au-thority ordered Internetservice providers in orderto prevent the website ofthe list – did not disclosethe total number ofblocked sites – which areconsidered to be obscenein nature.

Parliament IT minis-ter said, “This is a seriousproblem, we try to re-solve it, plus the govern-ment did not take into ac-count the situation.

He expressed his con-cern in the obscene posi-tion of a rapid increase inthe formation of a minis-terial committee recom-mended that the Parlia-mentary Secretary to theSub-Commission to con-sider the matter. n

Karachi: The auctionof 3G licenses attractsmore than one billiondollar as against a min-imum target of $850 mil-lion, resulting positiveimpacts on economymainly to contain awidening fiscal deficit ofthe country, said YaseenAnwar Governor StateBank of Pakistan.

Addressing a Pressconference for the an-nouncement of monetarypolicy, he appreciated thegovernment efforts forauction of 3G licenses inthe telecommunicationsector as a positive de-velopment could help incontaining the potentialfiscal slippage.

He said the govern-ment’s projected privati-zation proceeds of $800million of PakistanTelecommunication Lim-ited (PTCL) will addhandsome financial in-flows to the state kittyalong with differentsources such as issuanceof $500 million eurobonds and $800 millionfrom Coalition SupportFunds.

The telecom sectorhas been in the limelightagain as the sole sector

that can prevent thecountry from economycrisis with inflows ofhandsome FDI throughauction of 3G licenseswith host of economic ac-tivities.

PTA earlier thismonth announced thebase price of 3G licensesat $ 210 million, withmaximum of three3G/4G licenses to be auc-tioned in addition to onedefunct cellular licenseswith base price of $ 150million.

Analysts predict themaximum value Gov-ernment can attain for3G auction wouldn’t gobeyond $ 230-250 mil-lion if government fails toattract any foreign in-vestor (operator) in thebidding. However, 3G li-censes’ price can go sig-nificantly high if 2-3 for-eign operators get inter-ested in operating in Pak-istan.

This increased thegovernment’s involve-ment in the biddingprocess, which will besupervised by Ministry ofFinance and Ministry ofInformation Technologyand Telecommunication(MoITT). n

PTA caps on13,000 pornwebsites

Islamabad: Mobilecommunication tech-nologies have evolved in-dependently across con-tinents and there is sig-nificant challenge inachieving success whileintroducing innovativeservices. Ufone continuesto live up to these chal-lenges and recently in-troduced UMonitor; aservice with which cus-tomers will be able tomonitor calls on threephone numbers. Withthis offer customers can

now create a list of se-lected numbers and con-trol their incoming andoutgoing calls.

Taking another stepforward in offeringgreater value-addition;Ufone introduced UMon-itor for its postpaid andprepaid customers.

Time and time againUfone has been offeringunmatched packages

and services that havemet the changing needsof their customers. Theorganization has alwaysbeen keen to introducethe most competitiveproducts and services inthe market.

Akbar Khan, ChiefMarketing Officer atUfone said that it was agreat achievement forUfone to develop UMon-itor for its valued cus-tomers. He stressed thatthe Pakistani telecommarket is an example of

rapid progression andsustenance. He pro-claimed that at Ufone itwas understood that dif-ferent businesses havedifferent service andpackage requirements.It is all about identifyingand introducing an of-fering which fills the gapand satisfies the re-quirements of our valuedcustomers. n

Islamabad: MobilinkFoundation and JAQtrust recently joined to-gather for an activity tobuild a wall at the PehliKiran School No. 8, aschool for underprivi-leged children in Islam-abad.

The school providesprimary education toover 100 students in theslum areas of Islamabad.The school consists ofbasic infrastructure andthe children sat in a ba-sic shed with a tin roof. Itwas open from all sides

so cold winds made itvery difficult for the stu-dents to sit there.

20 Mobilink Volun-teers spent 4 hours atthe school where theyparticipated in hard la-bor building a wall. Theyalso took time to do somefun face painting andplayed cricket with thechildren. Mobilinkhelped build the wall togive students some pro-tection from the ele-ments, and to create asafe environment forthem to study in. n

Islamabad: If there’sheaven on earth its righthere - AJK now talks toPakistan and the land ofroyalty, UK absolutelyfree. Ufone celebratesthe beautiful land ofbeautiful people. Afterthe smashing success ofprevious city based of-fers, Ufone introduces aspecial offer for the res-idents of AJK.

The city can now en-joy free calls to all Ufonenumbers anytime of theday and 10 free minutesdaily to all UK landlinenumbers at a nominalsubscription charge ofRs.11.99+tax/day andthat too without chang-ing your package. Nowthat’s an offer that’llmake U say ‘offer ho touaisi!’. n

Islamabad: After tak-ing so many successivesteps and bringing smileon its customers face, herecomes Zong again withanother exciting offer thistime for Islamabad andRawalpindi users. Zongbrings the free on-netcalls to all over Pakistanfrom Islamabad /Rawalpindi only so thatthe customers can enjoyfree calls from Zong toZong for just Rs.7/day+taxor Rs.41.93/week+tax.

Zong aims at touchingthe lives of all Pakistanis.Zong serves to inspireand qualify the people ofPakistan with innovativetechnology and offers thatkeeps walking with to-day’s fast evolving cul-ture. n

Lahore: Warid Telecom (PVT) Ltd,the innovation leader, recently an-nounced the launch of Warid Tijarat.This exciting portal allows Warid

users to buy and sell simply throughmobile phones. Warid Tijarat helpsbridge the gap between people withsimilar interests by allowing them totrade their goods and services withsomeone in the same city.

One can sell/buy property, cars, mo-bile phones, electronics, find jobs andjoin book clubs and even buy tickets forlocal events and concerts through

this portal. This exciting service isavailable on SMS, Web and Wap plat-forms at http://waridtijarat.warid-tel.com.

Warid leads the market with theproduct portfolio of over 60 valueadded services based on IVR, SMS,MMS and GPRS platforms. Withgreat brand repute, loyal subscriberbase and recognition as one of the moststeadfast telecom operators, WaridTelecom continues to set the excellencebenchmarks in the telecom industryof Pakistan. n

Islamabad: President & CEO,PTCL, Walid Irshaid, has saidthat his Company is committed toshare its successes with all its em-ployees as well as their families.

"At PTCL, we want to makesure that our Company's divi-dends and successes are not onlyshared with our employees butalso with their families," saidMr. Irshaid while inauguratingthe 'PTCL Family Movie Night'for employees. "The welfare andwell-being of the families of ourdedicated and hard-working em-ployees is equally important tous."

The S. A. Siddiqui Auditoriumin PTCL Headquarters Build-ing, Islamabad wore a festivelook as employees with their fam-

ilies poured in to experience a fun-filled evening of movie, popcornsand other food offered by theCompany's Cafeteria.

"PTCL is working very hard tocreate a healthy corporate cultureof balancing work and recre-ation," said Senior Executive Vice

President HR, Syed Mazhar Hus-sain on the occasion. "We believethat happy and motivated em-

ployees are the key to our Com-pany's progress and develop-ment."

Prior to the movie screening,a lucky prize draw was also heldin which employees and familiesparticipated enthusiastically. Win-ners were given prizes by Mr. Ir-

shaid and other senior manage-ment officials who were also pres-ent on the occasion. n

Islamabad: Ufone re-launched two of its most suc-cessful handsets, G-1000 and G-3610, at an extremely reasonableprice. The need to re-launch these

handsets comes with the expan-sion of coverage in rural and re-mote areas and the demand of lowpriced and viable handsets fromcustomers.

G-1000 comes equipped witha torch light and an FM loudspeaker, with a 400 mAH battery.

It also has an impressive 1.18”display and a mini USB interfacecharging. The customers can getthis handset at a price of Rs799/- with a Ufone SIM card pre-

loaded with balance of Rs 50/- orthe handset can be acquired with-out a SIM at a price of Rs. 749/-.G-1000 was previously priced atRs.999/-.

G-3610 is a remarkable hand-set with 800 mAh battery, FM ra-dio, Flash torch, T-Flast card

slot, MP3 Player, 1.8” screen anda Camera. The handset is rea-sonably priced at Rs.1699/- andcomes without a SIM card orany bundled offer. This handset isalso network locked for UfoneNetwork only. G-3610 was previ-ously priced at Rs.1999/-.

Speaking on the launch, Ak-bar Khan, Ufone’s Chief Mar-keting Officer said that Ufone hasthe distinction of introducing themost affordable and dependablehandsets in the market at a fre-quent pace. He appreciated there-launch of low-end handsetswhich have previously catered toa large market. He said thatUfone strives to provide its cus-tomers with low-priced but stur-dy handsets to cater to their dai-ly communication needs. n


63

Manage outgoing, incomingcalls with Ufone UMonitor!

Zong launchesspecial offer fortwo city

Mobilink CSR building awall at Pehli Kiran School

Ufone AJK offer

Warid Tijarat launched

PTCL inaugurates 'Family Movie Night'

Ufone re-launches best selling handsets

After conducting their second annual developers' survey, Lon-don-based IT consultancy firm Ovum found Android is fast set toeclipse iOS "in terms of importance to developers," according toa recent press release.

iOS and Android are currently the top two platforms for mo-bile developers, with "growing interest" in Windows Phone and,

amazingly, BlackBerry OS (despite the company's recent turmoil).Some of the insights revealed in the survey square with com-

mon-sense views of the smartphone market. Interest continuesto build in Windows Phone 7, although it still lags far behind iOSand Android in terms of overall market share. The report alsoshows an increasing interest in web-based standards such asHTML5 as the way forward for building cross-platform mobile ap-plications. n

Research In Motion'snew chief executiveThorsten Heins said, heplans to focus more on theconsumer market but that a"drastic change" is not nec-essary at the strugglingBlackBerry maker.

Heins, who took overrecently from co-CEOs MikeLazaridis and Jim Balsillie,also said he had no plans tosplit up the company, whichhas been losing marketshare to Apple's iPhone andhandsets powered byGoogle's Android platform.

"We have fantastic de-vices and a fantastic ecosys-tem that we're building,"Heins said in a conferencecall with financial analysts."I want to build on that.

"I will not in any waysplit this up or separatethis into different business-es," said the 54-year-oldHeins, who joined RIM inDecember 2007 from Ger-man industrial giantSiemens, where he was chieftechnology officer.

Heins said he wantsRIM to "focus more on con-sumer, on consumer mar-keting" and he has received"the support from the boardin going down that path." n

Video-sharing websiteYouTube just announcedthat it has now reached 4billion video views per dayand 1 hour of video up-loads per second. That isthe equivalent of more thanhalf the world populationwatching one video everyday.

Videos on YouTuberange through all genresand categories. Being user-generated, the quality isoften sub-standard. Butthese astonishing numbersshow one thing: Content –in whatever form – is stillKing.

And while we some-times feel overwhelmed bynew and fast-moving tech-nologies, technology hasnot managed to change hu-man nature in its core. It

just makes it easier for us tocommunicate and to share.At the end of the day we arestill a race of storytellers –which is a very re-assuringthought. n


64

India's top court reject-ed a $2.5 billion tax billslapped on British phone gi-ant Vodafone over its pur-chase of a local mobile op-erator in a ruling seen as aboost to foreign investment.

Indian authorities im-posed the $2.5 billion taxbill and sought an equalsum in penalties over Voda-fone's $11.1 billion purchasein 2007 of a majority stakein the Indian mobile unit ofHong Kong's Hutchison

Whampoa.But the Supreme Court

ruled that "Indian tax au-

thorities had no jurisdictionto tax Vodafone" as it wasan overseas transaction.

Vodafone's clear-cut winin the bitter legal battlewas seen as delivering ashot-in-the-arm to India'sbattered reputation amongforeign investors who havebeen rattled by the coun-try's uncertain regulatoryclimate.

Vodafone chief execu-tive Vittorio Colao wel-comed the judgment, sayingit "underpins our confidencein India" and "faith in theIndian judicial system". n

Australian regulatorshave fined Nokia, theworld's largest cellphonemaker by volume, $58,000for spamming customersand said the Finnish com-pany should change its textmessage (SMS) marketing.The Australian Communi-cations and Media Author-ity said texts Nokia sent toclients as tips to get moreout of their phones promot-

ed the company without of-fering an 'unsubscribe' op-tion as required by law.

Nokia said it has dis-continued the service inAustralia and was rampingit down elsewhere, addingunsubscribing was simpleron its current devices. Theregulator said Nokia hadagreed to train employeesengaged in SMS marketingabout legal requirements. n

Vodafone wins $2.5 bn tax fight in India Nokia fined for spamtexts in Australia

New Delhi: India's ur-ban youth are suffering so-cial-media "fatigue,"prompting a number todelete their Facebook andother accounts, accordingto a new study.

"Youngsters have start-ed finding social media bor-ing, confusing, frustratingand time-consuming," thesurvey commissioned by theAssociated Chambers of

Commerce and Industry ofIndia (ASSOCHAM) found.

India's youth have"started experiencing so-cial-media fatigue" and aretending to log less fre-quently onto social networkslike Facebook, Google+,Twitter, Orkut, and othersthan when they signed up,the study reported.n

Jerusalem: Scientistsin Israel have developed away of using satellite im-ages to help farmers detectsmall-scale changes in cli-mate and improve theirharvests, a method thatcould bolster food suppliesfor an increasingly hungryworld population.

Rather than analysethe weather and topogra-phy of large swathes ofland, the new system di-vides fields into smallermicroclimates that guidefarmers on the best way to

work each individual plot.It tells them when it is

best to plant seeds, whento spray pesticides andeven which crop is mostsuitable for each square-kilometre field, said UriDayan, a climatologistfrom Hebrew University inJerusalem.

The UN Food and Agri-culture Organisation(FAO) has said that globalfood output must increaseby 70 percent by 2050 tomeet the needs of an ex-pected 9.1 billion people. n

Japanese telecom op-erator KDDI said net prof-it for the December quar-ter fell 17 percent onfalling income from voicecalls but raised its full-year revenue outlookthanks to iPhone 4S sales.

The country's numbertwo telecom firm said itsnet profit for the fiscalthird quarter dropped to54.2 billion yen ($698 mil-lion) from 65.7 billion yenin the same period a yearearlier. Operating profitfor the quarter fell 5.4 per-cent to 117 billion yen from124 billion yen a year ear-lier, it said. n

Young Indiansin social'fatigue': study

Food security withmicroclimates

Since Google Inc. intro-duced its Android operatingsystem in 2007, the com-pany's strategy has beensimple: Give it to developersfor free and make moneywhen consumers click adson the Web or through apps.That model is hitting asnag.

Amazon.com Inc. andChinese Internet giantsBaidu Inc. and TencentHoldings Ltd. are using An-droid as a building block fortheir devices, skipping pre-loaded applications such asGmail, Google Maps andYouTube that generate adrevenue for Google, as wellas its app store. Amazon'sKindle Fire tablet, which isgaining ground on AppleInc.'s iPad, comes with noneof those apps.

"The Fire may be thebest Android tablet outthere, even though it's theleast Android-y of all ofthem," said Noah Elkin, ananalyst at New York-basedresearch firm EMarketerInc. "The Google experi-ence is very much in thebackground." n

Snubbed Facebook and Twitter engineers are trying to teach Google a lesson infairness. Google this month created a new search tool on its site. Search Plus scoursthe Internet through Google and Google Plus. Which means it leaves out the world’smost popular social-networking sites: Facebook and Twitter. No fair, said a groupdescribing themselves as “some engineers at Facebook, Twitter and MySpace andin consultation with several other social networking companies.”

To fight back, they created a “proof of concept” site called Focusontheuser.org.“How much better would social search be if Google surfaced results from all acrossthe web?” the site says on its home page. “We created a tool that uses Google’s ownrelevance measure — the ranking of their organic search results — to determine whatsocial content should appear in the areas where Google+ results are currently hard-coded.” n

According to new information from the Pew Research Center’s Internet and Amer-ican Life Project, tablet ownership has jumped from about 1 out of every 10 Amer-icans to approximately 19 percent.

The previous study was conducted around the middle of December, thus the mas-sive increase in tablet ownership can likely be attributed to the holiday shopping sea-son. While Apple’s iPad definitely helped boost that percentage, less expensive tabletslike Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Barnes and Noble’s Nook Tablet were also partial con-tributors. Analysts have estimated that Apple sold approximately 13 million iPadsover the holiday season while Amazon sold between four to five million Kindle Firetablets. In addition to tablet ownership increasing rapidly, e-book reader ownershipalso spiked from 18 percent in December 2011 to 29 percent in January 2012. n

Amazon Firetakes Androidleaving Googleapps behind

KDDI net profitfalls 17pc

Facebook, Twitter engineers launch‘fairer’ version of Google

Tablet ownership nearly doublesin January

RIM new CEOto focus moreon consumermarket

YouTube reaches 4bn video views per day

N E W S

2012 Android's year for developers

Manama: Gulf Air, the na-tional carrier of the Kingdomof Bahrain, received positiveresults in an independent pas-senger survey carried out by

the global airline industry’sgoverning body, InternationalAir Transport Association(IATA), despite a difficult 2011by improving on several serv-

ice and performance aspects.The survey carried out over

a six month period – April toSeptember 2011- revealedthat the customers’ ‘overallsatisfaction’ across the air-line’s several service areas re-ceived an average rating of3.84 as against 3.76 in 2010 on

a scale of 1 to 5.The rating for Gulf Air cab-

in crew remained high with anaverage of 4.16, once againhighlighting the cabin crew’sprofessional service that wasrated ‘excellent’ by an IATAsurvey in 2010. n

Survey rates Gulf Air’s service,operations as Excellent

World leading mobilephone maker Nokia post-ed deep 2011 losses amidslumping handset salesand as its first Windows-based smartphone, aimedat shoring up its flaggingmarket share, struggledto get off the ground.

For all of 2011, thecompany posted a net lossof 1.2 billion euros ($1.5billion), compared to a netprofit of 1.8 billion euros ayear earlier, while the finalquarter of the year washammered with a 1.07-billion-euro net loss aftera profit of 745 million inthe same period a yearearlier.

Net sales for the Octo-ber-December periodmeanwhile slumped 21

percent year-on-year to10.0 billion euros, whilesales for the full year weredown nine percent at 38.66billion euros. The massivefall was nonetheless large-ly in line with, and evenslightly better than ana-lyst expectations, andNokia's stock initially

jumped nearly six percentafter its earnings weremade public.

Several analysts hint-ed the boost to its stockmay in part have been acorrection to the hammer-ing it received earlierwhen two suppliers issuedweak reports. n


65

Nokia 2011 results deep in reddespite new Lumia line

Smartphones power Samsung to record profitHP to make webOS softwarepublic by September

Swedish mobile net-work giant Ericsson andChinese rival ZTE havesettled their patent in-fringement disputes, Er-icsson said in a state-ment.

"The parties havenow signed a globalcross-licensing agree-ment and both partieshave also agreed to dropall litigation," said thestatement.

In April, Ericssonfiled lawsuits in Britainand Italy against ZTEfor infringement of itspatents on mobilephones plus a lawsuit inGermany regardingphones and infrastruc-ture after saying it triedunsuccessfully to get thecompany to sign a li-cense for several years.

ZTE, which in recentyears has zoomed to jointhe ranks of the world'stop mobile phone man-ufacturers, respondedwithin days with coun-tersuits for allegedlybreaching its Chinesepatents on networktechnology.

"Ericsson has thestrongest patent port-folio in the industrywith over 27,000patents and any com-pany which sells mobiledevices or systemsneeds a license from Er-icsson," said Kasim Al-falahi, Chief Intellectu-al Property Officer atEricsson.

"We have signedmore than 90 patentagreements with differ-ent vendors worldwide.Now we can add ZTE tothis group," he added. n

South Korea's Samsung Elec-tronics reported a record oper-ating profit of 5.3 trillion won($4.72 billion) in the fourth quar-ter, thanks largely to boomingsmartphone sales.

The company also announceda 25 trillion won investment inits chipmaking and panel-mak-ing business.

However, the world's largesttechnology firm by revenueslipped to back second place be-hind rival Apple in terms ofsmartphone sales, according toresearch.

Samsung's telecoms busi-nesses accounted for 2.64 trillionwon out of the total quarterly op-erating profit, with the flagshipGalaxy S2 and Galaxy Notebrands largely credited for the

strong re-sult.

Revenuein October-D e c e m b e rwas 47.3trillion won,a 13 percentrise year-on-year. Netprofit of fourtrillion wonwas up 17percent on ayear earlier.

For thewhole of last year the companylogged a net profit of 13.7 trillionwon, down 15 percent from theprevious year. Revenue rose 6.7percent to a record 165 trillionwon and operating profit de-

clined 6.05 percent to 16.2 tril-lion won.

Samsung overtook Apple inthe third quarter of last year tobecome the world's largest sell-er of smartphones. n

Hewlett-Packardsaid it will make its we-bOS mobile operatingsystem available to theopen source communityby September.

HP announced inDecember that it wasplanning to make we-bOS open source, mean-ing that developers any-where can tinker with itas they wish and it willbe available for anyoneto use free of charge.

The Palo Alto, Cali-fornia-based HP ac-quired the webOS soft-ware as part of its $1.2billion purchase of Palm

in 2010 but later aban-doned plans to makesmartphones and tabletcomputers using theplatform.

"By contributing we-bOS to the open sourcecommunity, HP un-leashes the creativity ofhardware and softwaredevelopers to build anew generation of ap-plications and devices,"HP said in a statement.

The computer makersaid it would make thewebOS source codeavailable under an opensource license "in its en-tirety by September." n

AT&T's failed mergerplan with wireless carri-er T-Mobile drove the UStelecommunications gi-ant deep into the red inthe fourth quarter, thecompany reported.

AT&T posted a huge$6.68 billion loss for thefourth quarter after pay-ing $4.0 billion to Ger-many's DeutscheTelekom, parent of T-Mo-bile USA, to break up thedeal after stiff oppositionfrom US regulators.AT&T dropped its $39billion offer to buy T-Mo-bile, the fourth-largestwireless carrier in theUnited States, on De-cember 19.

AT&T had banked onthe tie-up Mobile to leap-frog industry leader Ver-

izon into first place. But itabandoned the plan afterUS regulators said itwould reduce competi-tion in the wireless serv-ices industry and the Jus-tice Department sued toblock the deal.

AT&T said its fourth-quarter loss was $1.12per share, including aone-time charge of 44cents for the terminationof the merger.

After adjustments, thecompany reported earn-ings per share of 42 cents,in line with analyst fore-casts.

Fourth-quarter rev-enues of $32.5 billionwere up 3.6 percent fromthe year-ago period onrecord mobile broadbandsales, it said. n

Swedish telecomequipment maker Erics-son reported a worse-than-expected 73-percentdive in its fourth quarternet profit on weak mobilenetwork sales, sendingits share price intofreefall.

For the period fromOctober to December, Er-icsson registered a netprofit of 1.15 billion kro-nor (130.8 million euros,$170 million), comparedwith 4.32 billion a yearearlier.

Following the an-nouncement, Ericsson's

share price plunged by13.28 percent in middaytrading on the Stockholmstock exchange, whichwas down 1.23 percent.

Network sales fell bynine percent to 33.3 bil-lion kronor in the fourthquarter. For the full-year2011, network sales roseby 17 percent.

In the fourth quarter,overall sales climbed by1.4 percent to 63.7 billionkronor while gross mar-gin slipped from 34.7 per-cent in 2010 to 30.2 per-cent in 2011, Ericssonsaid. n

Apple blew past fore-casts and reported recordquarterly net profit andrevenue in the first quar-ter since the death offounder Steve Jobs, driv-en by strong sales of thenew iPhone.

Apple said its netprofit more than doubledin the first quarter of fis-cal 2012 to a record$13.06 billion while rev-enue soared to an all-time high of $46.33 billionfrom $26.74 billion a yearago.

Apple said it sold

37.04 million iPhones inthe quarter which endedon December 31, up 128percent from a year ago,and 15.43 million iPads,a 111 percent increase.

The California-basedgadget-maker sold 5.2million Macintosh com-puters in the quarter, up

26 percent, and 15.4 mil-lion iPods, a 21 percentdecline from a year ago.

"We're thrilled withour outstanding resultsand record-breaking salesof iPhones, iPads andMacs," Apple chief exec-utive Tim Cook said in astatement. n

Ericsson, ZTEbury patenthatchets

AT&T posts big loss afterT-Mobile breakup fee

Ericsson posts 73pc slidein profit

iPhone sales drive recordquarter for Apple

N E W S


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Telenor says it expectsIndia to protect its "lawfulinvestment" after an Indi-an court scrapped mobilepermits held by the Nor-wegian giant and otherfirms on grounds the li-censing process was rigged.

Telenor entered India'sgrowing telecom market in2009, paying $1.1 billionfor a majority stake in In-dian mobile firm Uninor,which holds 22 of the 122 li-cences cancelled by theSupreme Court.

"We look to the govern-

ment to arrive at a fairoutcome that doesn't jeop-ardize our lawful invest-ment," the company said ina statement.

Telenor said separately

in Oslo it would take acharge of 4.2 billion kroner(550 million euros, $720million) on its Indian unit.After the charge, the bookvalue of the company's In-

dian assets would be worth2.4 billion kroner.

The Supreme Courtscrapped the second-gen-eration (2G) mobile licencesissued in 2008 to a host ofcompanies with foreignpartners on the groundsthe sale was fraudulent,costing the government upto $39 billion in lost rev-enues.

Telenor is the secondlargest foreign investor inthe country's telecom sector,after Britain's VodafoneGroup. n

South African mobiletelephone operator MTNsaid that rival Turkcell hasthreatened to sue it in a UScourt for alleged corruptioninvolving a deal in Iran.

MTN said Turkcell hasaccused the South Africangroup of bribing govern-ment officials and pressingPretoria to endorse Iran'snuclear programme in ex-change for rights to an Iran-ian GSM mobile operatinglicence.

"Turkcell has informedMTN that it believes it hasa claim against MTN andits relevant subsidiary, aris-ing out of the award of(Iran's) second GSM licence,based on alleged violationsof United States laws, andhas indicated an intentionto bring such a claim beforea United States court," anMTN statement said.

MTN owns a 49-per-cent stake in the Iranianmobile telecoms companyIrancell, which holds theoperating licence. Turkcellsubsidiary East Asian Con-sortium made an unsuc-cessful bid to acquire the li-cence in 2005. n

The president and five

other top executives of

Japan's biggest mobile

phone operator will take

pay cuts to apologise for a

series of network trou-

bles.

The firm admitted

that it has struggled to

deal with growing data

traffic as smartphones

boom in popularity, and

pledged fresh investment

to tackle the issue. Pres-

ident Ryuji Yamada will

have his remuneration re-

duced by 20 percent for

three months while the

other executives will take

a 10 percent trim over

the same period.

"I deeply apologise to

our customers for the

huge trouble," Yamada

told a news conference. n

New Delhi: Nokia, theworld’s largest seller ofmobile phones by volumes,had also recently leaded inthe dual-SIM mobile hand-sets in India.

Finnish handset man-ufacturer, Nokia enteredthe Dual SIM market in2010. Nokia took correctivesteps by joining the band-wagon of dual-SIM mobilephones by launching itsfirst ever C1-00 and C2-00phones in mid-2010.

However, Nokia, a lateentrant in the multi-SIMdevice category, fasttracked the process of con-solidation by rolling outfive models by Sept 2011,to make its presence felt inevery price segment in In-dia.

Nokia has launched asmany as seven phones in-cluding the Asha series inthe dual-SIM category. n

Tablet computers at-tracted millions of cus-tomers last quarter, butthe numbers are notenough to outsell thesmartphones. According toCanalys, the total num-ber of smartphone ship-ments in 2011 exceeded

desktop, and last quarteralone, more smartphoneswere shipped to storesthan PC, tablets, netbooksand laptops combined.

The market trend isobviously shifting from tra-ditional desktop PCs,tablet computers and net-book computers to smart-phones with larger screensizes and better CPUs. Ac-cording to the data, smart-phone makers shipped158.5 million smartphones

last quarter while PC, lap-tops, tablet computers andnetbooks shipped lastquarter was 120.2 milliononly.

Laptops or notebooks isstill more popular thantablet computers with 57.9million units, followed by

29.1 million desktop PCs,and 26.5 million tabletcomputers were reported-ly shipped during the lastthree months of 2011.

Apparently, smart-phone growth last quarterwas due to new featuresavailable, offered by theiPhone 4S and the newmobile operating system ofGoogle, the Android IceCream Sandwich, plus, themore competitive tagprices of smartphones. n

The first of Nokia'snew generation of smart-phones isn't flashy andcertainly isn't an iPhonekiller. But it's a nice de-vice, and at Rs 15,500 it'sa bargain.

Nokia and Microsoft,erstwhile big players inthe mobile market, havejoined forces to get back inthe game. A little morethan a year ago, Microsoftlaunched a new mobile op-erating system called Win-dows Phone 7 to replace itsaging Windows Mobilesoftware. Then last Feb-ruary, the world's largestphone manufacturer an-nounced that it wouldabandon Symbian, itslongtime smartphone-op-erating system, and adoptWindows Phone 7 in itsplace.

Windows Phone 7 de-vices have drawn little in-terest from consumers todate, but Microsoft hopesNokia can help changethat. The first Nokia Win-

dows Phone 7 devicesstarted hitting storeshelves around the globelast fall and hit Americanshores earlier this monthwhen T-Mobile began sell-ing the Lumia 710. n

Samsung Electronicscondemned an Israeli com-mercial featuring a Sam-sung tablet, expressing dis-may at Iran's threat to banits products over the ap-parently anti-Tehran teaser.The South Korean elec-tronics giant said it had not

been involved in produc-tion of the TV spot, pro-duced by Israeli cable TVcannel HOT.

HOT offered Galaxytabs as gifts to attract newviewers and the advert waspart of the station's sub-scription campaign, Sam-sung said.

"We have absolutelynothing to do with this tel-evision spot," a SamsungElectronics spokesman told.

The commercial wasproduced by HOT "withoutSamsung's knowledge orparticipation," the companysaid in a statement. n

Telenor asks India to protect 'lawful' investment

Silicon Valley braces forFacebook millionaires

Micron CEO dies in plane crash

Turkcellthreatenssuit overIraniandeal: MTN

Japantelecombosses takepay cuts forsystem woes

Nokia leadsdual-SIMphone marketin India

Smartphone shipmentsovertake PC, tablets lastquarter

Nokia Lumia 710fails to impress

Even before Facebook

goes public, Silicon Valley is

buzzing in anticipation of

the "instant millionaires"

that may soon be looking for

ways to spend their new-

found wealth.

Eight years after Mark

Zuckerberg founded the

company in a Harvard dorm

room, the stock market de-

but is expected to value the

social media giant at as

much as $100 billion.

While Zuckerberg and

other longtime staffers

stand to benefit the most,

the initial public offering,

which is expected early,

could also make million-

aires out of much of the

company's rank-and-file.

Local real estate agents

say they expect the IPO --

anticipated to be the largest

ever by a technology com-

pany -- to boost already

high home prices as newly

wealthy staffers at the social

media giant begin shop-

ping.

"It's going to have a

great effect," said Pierre

Buljan, a Silicon Valley real

estate agent who shows

homes to young technology

executives. "I believe with

1,000 new millionaires,

they're going to need a place

to live." n

Steve Appleton, the chiefexecutive of leading semi-conductor maker MicronTechnology, died at the ageof 51 when a small plane hewas piloting crashed at anIdaho airport, his companysaid.

"We are deeply saddenedto announce that Steve Ap-pleton, Micron Chairman

and CEO, passed away thismorning in a small plane ac-cident in Boise," Idaho, thecompany's board of directors

said in a statement."Steve's passion and en-

ergy left an indelible markon Micron, the Idaho com-munity and the technologyindustry at large."

Airport officials said thesingle-engine Lancair planecaught fire and went downbetween two runways. Ap-pleton was the only person

aboard. The cause of the in-cident is under investiga-tion. n

Samsungcondemns'anti-Iran'ad featuringits tablet

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67

Can industry heavy-weights Google, PayPal,Microsoft and AOL -- alongwith 11 others in high-techsuch as Facebook andLinkedIn, as well as the fi-nancial world's Bank ofAmerica and Fidelity In-vestments -- succeed instopping phishing attacksright in their tracks? Inuniting behind an effortcalled DMARC.org un-veiled, the group says itcan through policy-basedsteps filter out spoofedemail that attackers usefor phishing.

"Whether you are anenterprise or offering a con-sumer service, you can ap-ply this policy now," says

Brett McDowell, seniormanager of customer secu-rity initiatives at PayPal,who is chairman of the or-ganization DMARC, whichstands for "Domain-basedMessage Authentication,Reporting and Confor-

mance." The DMARC.orgsite today published guide-

lines and the specificationfor its technology, whichmakes use of the well-known standards SenderPolicy Framework (SPF)and DomainKeys Identi-fied Mail (DKIM), two basicapproaches widely used to-

day for authenticatingemail. n

The European Com-mission has opened a for-mal investigation to assesswhether Samsung Elec-tronics has abusively usedcertain of its standard es-sential patent rights to dis-tort competition in Euro-pean mobile device mar-kets.

The opening of pro-ceedings means that theCommission will examinethe case as a matter of pri-ority. It does not prejudgethe outcome of the investi-gation.

In 2011, Samsung

sought injunctive relief invarious Member States'courts against competingmobile device makers based

on alleged infringementsof certain of its patent

rights which it has declaredessential to implement Eu-ropean mobile telephonystandards. The Commis-

sion will investigate, in par-ticular, whether in doing so

Samsung has failed to ho-nour its commitment givenin 1998 to the EuropeanTelecommunications Stan-dards Institute (ETSI) to li-cense any standard essen-tial patents relating to Eu-ropean mobile telephonystandards on fair, reason-able and non-discrimina-tory (FRAND) terms.

The Commission willexamine whether such be-haviour amounts to anabuse of a dominant posi-tion prohibited by Article102 of the Treaty on theFunctioning of the EU. n

European online shop-pers are expected to spend€14.6bn on mobile devicesin 2012, up from €2.4bn in

2010, according to a surveycommissioned by Kelkoo.

The report reveals that

mobile shopping across Eu-rope will increase from just€2.4bn in 2010 to €14.6bnby the end of 2012, accel-

erated growth of 510% injust two years. With totalEuropean online sales set to

increase by 16percent in2012 and smartphone us-age at a record high, shop-ping using mobile deviceswill become an increasing-ly important part of retailsales, set to represent6.1percent of all online re-tail spending in Europethis year.

For the third year run-ning, consumers in the UKare predicted to be thebiggest mobile shoppers inEurope in 2012 and are ex-pected to spend €5.4 billionusing mobile devices. Thisis followed by consumers in

Germany (€3.2bn) andFrance (€2.2bn). The Span-ish will spend the least onmobile shopping this yearat just €0.2bn closely fol-lowed by the Danes(€0.3bn). The UK also topsEurope for the highest pro-portion of all online spend-ing using a mobile at7.9percent. Conversely,those in Poland (4.1per-cent), France (4.6percent)Denmark (5percent) andItaly (5.3percent) are ex-pected to spend the lowestproportion of their onlinebudget on their mobiles. n

Indonesia and Pak-istan signed a preferentialtrade agreement in a bid toboost bilateral economiccooperation and are ex-pected to expand the tradedeal into a free tradeagreement in the near fu-ture.

Under the agreement,Indonesia offered reducedtariffs to Pakistan on 216tariff lines, including fresh

fruit, cotton yarn, cottonfabrics, ready made gar-ments, fans, sportinggoods and leather goods.

Pakistan, on the otherhand, has extended pref-erential rates on 287 tarifflines of Indonesian prod-ucts, such as crude palmoil and its derivatives, sug-ar confectionery, cocoaproducts, consumer goods,chemicals, tableware,

kitchenware, rubber prod-ucts, wood products, glass-ware products and elec-tronics items.

Indonesian Trade Min-ister Gita Wirjawan saidthat the pact would allowgreater flow of goods andcommodities between thetwo countries and enhancecooperation that had longexisted. n

Few may have envi-

sioned that an ultra-cheap

tablet sold by the most pop-

ular online retailer in the

world would be successful.

And yet Amazon's Kin-

dle Fire finds itself in just

such a situation, according

to estimates from Jordan

Rohan, an analyst from

Stifel Nicolaus. In a note to

investors, Rohan said that

Amazon sold an estimated 6

million Kindle Fires in the

fourth quarter of 2011, re-

vised upward from the 5

million units that Rohan

had previously projected.

Even so, the Kindle Fire

on its own was no match for

Apple's iPad, which sold

more than 15 million units

in the fourth quarter of

2011. The iPad's dominance

in the tablet market has

been well-documented as

Strategy Analytics last week

estimated that the iPad ac-

counted for 57.6% of all

tablet shipments in the

fourth quarter of 2011. n

Nokia Siemens Net-works is looking to cut 4,100jobs in its home markets ofFinland and Germany aspart of a previously an-nounced plan for 17,000 re-dundancies.

The company confirmedto Reuters that it is talkingto local unions about 2,900job losses in Germany and1,200 in Finland.

The 2,900 cuts in Ger-many equate to roughly athird of the company's work-force in the country.

"We will fight with the

employees against this jobcull. Our target is to save asmany jobs as possible witha collective labour agree-ment and to avoid the close-down of Munich plant,"union official Michael Lep-pel told Reuters.

The Finnish economicsministry said the timing ofjob cuts was problematic asNokia itself is in the midstcutting thousands of jobs.

"For the Finnish econo-my the situation is chal-lenging," it said in a state-ment. n

Google, Microsoft, Facebook, BoAteam to wipe out phishing

Samsung facing European investigation intopatent abuse allegations

Mobile shopping across Europe has grown by 510pc

RI, Pakistan to further expand trade deal

NSN cutting 4,100 jobsKindle Fireking ofAndroidtablets

Slow growthahead fortelecom serviceproviderrevenues China Telecom's Beijing

division has issued a state-ment confirming that it willstart selling the CDMA ver-sion of Apple's iPhone 4S.

Citing a press state-ment from the company,the semi-official China Dai-ly newspaper said that salesare expected to start latenext month or early Marchat the latest.

"China Telecom has al-ready started preparatorywork for the launch of theiPhone 4S," according tothe press release. Thesmartphone has alreadybeen approved for sale bythe country's regulators.

Currently, only ChinaUnicom officially sells theiPhone in the country, on its3G network - although over6 million handsets havebeen detected on China Mo-bile's GSM only network. n

Huawei TechnologiesCo. has dropped its plan toset up a factory in India fornow and has contracted aunit of Flextronics Inter-national Ltd. to manufac-ture telecommunicationsequipment for local sup-plies, said a top executive atthe Chinese company's In-dian operations.

The company, which hasa small Indian unit to makefiber-optic equipment nearthe southern city of Chen-nai, has been planning to setup a factory to make moreproducts locally, keeping inmind New Delhi's concernsthat imported telecom gearmay contain spyware. Also,local manufacturing wouldhelp it avoid anti-dumpingtaxes and meet some guide-lines India proposes to im-plement. n

The telecoms industryrebounded in 2011, withservice provider revenuesand capex growing ro-bustly compared to thesame period in 2010, ac-cording to Ovum.

In a new report, thetelecoms analyst foundthat service provider (SP)capex and revenues grewan estimated 12 per centand seven per cent re-spectively in 2011, withcapex reaching $314bnand revenues $1,962bn.

However, the reportforecasts that SP revenueswill advance at a CAGR of2.9 per cent over the 2010-2017 period, which ismarkedly down from thehistoric CAGR of 6.3 percent achieved in 2004-2010. There is a similarslowdown with capex:capex expanded at aCAGR of 6.5 per cent in2004-2010, but this willlikely slow to 3.1 per centin 2010-2017.

"2011 represents agood bounce-back for theindustry," noted report au-thor and Ovum principalanalyst Matt Walker.However, Walker addedthat "macroeconomicweakness is constrainingtop-line SP revenuegrowth. Service providersare coping with this real-ity by aggressively at-tacking their cost struc-tures, both capex andopex." n

China Telecomto start salesof Apple'siPhone

Huawei dropsplan to set upIndia plant

N E W S


68

Etisalat Group an-nounced that EmiratesTelecommunications Cor-poration – Etisalat Board ofDirectors has appointedMr. Saleh Al Abdooli asChief Executive Officer forEtisalat UAE, the largestcompany of Etisalat Groupthat generates more than70percent of the total ofrevenue of the Group, ef-fective 8th April 2012.

A strong leader with aproven track record, SalehAl Abdooli has been for thepast five years the CEO of

Etisalat Misr, one of thelargest and most successfulsubsidiaries of Etisalat

Group. His leadership yearsin the Egyptian markethave been a great successstory in the telecom indus-try and have earned him agreat reputation and sev-eral international awardsas a leader of one of the bestthird entrants in mobileoperation worldwide. Hehas achieved remarkableresults in the matureEgyptian market that hadbeen dominated for about adecade by a duopoly of twogiant operators, Vodafoneand Orange (Mobinil). n

Washington: Popularsocial networking siteFacebook finds India amajor growth market,where the number of usershave more than doubled inthe past one year, asagainst near-zero pene-tration in the neighbour-ing China.

For Facebook, lookingto raise $5 billion throughinitial share sale, India isa key source for futuregrowth.

The growth of 132 percent in India has been

higher than many othercountries, including homemarket in US.

"We have achieved

varying levels of penetra-tion within the popula-tion of Internet users indifferent countries," Face-

book has said, while not-ing that its penetrationrate in India was estimat-ed to be 20-30 per cent.

"... in China, whereFacebook access is re-stricted, we have near zeropenetration. We continueto invest in growing ouruser base, particularly inmarkets where we are rel-atively less penetrated,"according to Facebook'sdocuments for IPO filedwith the US Securitiesand Exchange Commis-sion (SEC). n

Microsoft Corp. laid offroughly 200 employees asthe software giant restruc-tured its marketing opera-tions in an effort to stream-line job responsibilities andeliminate duplication.

Microsoft said the layoffswere intended to reduce over-lapping responsibilities ofthe Redmond, Wash., com-pany's central marketingteam and its various businessdivisions, which also con-duct marketing activities.The move will rationalizeand define job responsibili-

ties, a company spokesmansaid.

The reorganization givesMicrosoft's central marketinggroup greater responsibilityfor managing the company'snearly two dozen brands,from the umbrella Microsoftbrand to Bing and Xbox. Itwill be responsible for coor-dinating advertising mes-sages among the company'sdivisions. It also will super-vise the company's relation-ships with ad agencies, es-pecially as ad messages pres-ent bundled features. n

Etisalat Group an-nounced that EmiratesTelecommunications Corpo-ration – Etisalat Board of Di-rectors has appointed SaeedAl Hamli as Chief ExecutiveOfficer for Etisalat Misr, oneof the largest and the mostsuccessful subsidiaries ofEtisalat Group, effective 8thApril 2012.

Saeed Al Hamli, whocomes from diverse technicaland commercial back-grounds, enjoys more than20 years of experience inthe telecom industry. Sincehe joined Etisalat in 1991, hehas held a range of mana-gerial and executive posi-tions and demonstrated re-markable performance.

Al Hamli has workedboth inside and outside theUAE, a diverse exposurethat has enriched his knowl-edge of the industry in vari-ous competitive business en-vironments. From 2007 to2011, he worked as the CEOof Etisalat Afghanistanwhere he achieved excellentbusiness and operational re-sults. n

NEW YORK: JacksonPollock may lose his recordfor creating the most expen-sive painting ever – and notto another enfant terrible ofthe art world, but to a minorLos Angeles mural painterwho happened upon theFacebook offices in 2005.

David Choe could be theunlikeliest of all the million-aires and billionaires whowill be minted by the socialnetwork’s flotation this year.If the company hits the topvaluations being talkedabout, then Choe will havebeen paid about $200 million

for the “graphic sexual mu-rals” that adorned Face-book’s walls in its early years.

Choe, who says his“dirty-style figure paintingscombine themes of desire,degradation, and exaltation”,took shares in Facebook in-stead of a cash payment. Al-though he told friends atthe time that Facebook wasa “ridiculous and pointless”idea that wouldn’t succeed,he made the gamble, andnow the shares look like be-ing the hottest property onthe US stock market. n

A Taiwanese televisioncommercial featuring a SteveJobs look-alike angel com-plete with white wings and ahalo has caused uproar, withcritics saying it is disre-spectful towards Apple's latefounder.

The commercial showswell-known local comedianA-Ken in blue jeans and ablack turtleneck praising thevirtues of a tablet from Tai-wan-based Action Electron-

ics that runs on Google's An-droid operating system.

"I'd like to present to youa new generation of tablets.It's amazing," a smiling A-Ken says in the 20-secondcommercial. "My God, I fi-nally have another Pad toplay with."

Jobs, who died in Octoberat the age 56, was no fan ofGoogle's Android system,considering it a rip-off of Ap-ple's technology. n

Norwegian telecom gi-ant Telenor posted a sharpprofit fall for 2011 after tak-ing a charge of 4.2 billion kro-ner (550 million euros, $720million) on its Indian unit af-ter New Delhi scrapped mo-bile licences in a massivefraud probe.

Net profit in 2011 fell44.6 percent from the level ayear earlier to 7.9 billion kro-ner in large part due to com-plications from its majoritystake in Indian companyUninor. India's SupremeCourt recently cancelled sec-ond-generation (2G) mobile li-cences issued in 2008 to ahost of companies with for-eign partners on the groundsthe sale was rigged, costingthe government some $40 bil-lion in lost revenues.

Telenor entered what isnow the world's second-biggest telecom market in2009, taking a 67.25 percentstake in Uninor which holds22 of the 122 licences can-celled by the Supreme Court.

"We are working to pro-tect our investments in allpossible manners, and willconsider every option prior toany further investments,"Telenor Chief Executive JonFredrik Baksaas said in astatement. n

Bahrain Telecommunications Co (Batel-co) has agreed to sell its 43 percent stakein Indian affiliate S Tel for $175 million, inthe first foreign exit since India scrapped122 telecoms licences as part of a corrup-tion probe.

Batelco will sell the stake to India part-ner Sky City Foundation Limited and willreceive the same price it paid to acquire itsholding in S Tel in 2009, the Bahraini op-erator said. Batelco said the deal would becompleted by the fourth quarter. S Tel wasnot immediately available for comment.

"This is a part of an earlier under-standing with its Indian Partner to exit, giv-en the circumstances surrounding the 2Gprobe in India over the past twelve months,"Batelco said in a statement. The now-re-voked licences were awarded in 2008, be-fore Batelco bought into S Tel. n

European Union com-petition regulators ap-proved the $12.5-billiontakeover of Motorola Mo-bility by Google, judgingthe move unlikely to impacton the market for smart-phone operating systems.

"We have approved theacquisition of Motorola Mo-bility by Google because,upon careful examination,this transaction does not it-

self raise competition is-sues," said Joaquin Almu-nia, the EU's anti-trustcommissioner.

An investigation cen-tred on whether Googlemight make it harder forbig-selling handset manu-facturers such as Samsungor HTC to use the operatingsystem Google developed,Android. n

World-leading mobilephone maker Nokia will cut4,000 jobs at its smartphonemanufacturing facilities inFinland, Hungary and Mex-ico by the end of 2012, it said.

"The expected headcountimpact by country is 2,300 inKomarom (Hungary), 700in Reynosa (Mexico) and1,000 in Salo (Finland),"company spokesman JamesEtheridge told.

The job cuts follow a re-view of smartphone opera-tions announced in Septem-ber 2011, when the companywarned jobs may be cut atthe plants in question.

The factories in Ko-marom, Reynosa and Salowill in the future focus onsoftware-heavy smartphonecustomisation, while manu-facturing will shift to Asia toshorten the time it takes forproducts to get to market, thecompany said in a state-ment.

"But these plannedchanges are all about speedand responsiveness and ul-timately, our competitive-ness," Etheridge said. n

Saleh appoints CEO for Etisalat UAE

Facebook India users doubled in last one year

Outrage over Steve Jobsangel in Taiwan ad

Telenor posts 44.6pcprofit drop

Nokia tocut 4,000jobs in2012

Saeed appointsCEO forEtisalat Misr

Artist’s $200mFacebookwindfall

Microsoft lays off 200 inreorganising effort

N E W S

Batelco sells India venture aftertelecom scandal

EU approves Google's $12.5billion Motorola takeover

MUMBAI: Shares of Unitech end-ed on a flat note on the bourses, evenas its telecom business partner Te-lenor sought "indemnity and com-pensation" for cancellation of 22 li-cences held by their joint-ventureUninor.

The scrip finished the trade at Rs31.65 apiece on the BSE, down 0.31per cent from the previous close. Inthe intra-day trade, the stock had fall-en by as much as 5.19 per cent to alow of Rs 30.10, but recouped almostall the losses.

Telenor also said it would start theprocess of looking for a new partnersince the strategic tie-up with Unitech"does not have a future".

The Norwegian firm hasover 67 per cent stake in Uni-nor. Reacting to Telenor's state-

ment, Unitech also issued a press re-lease today, wherein it expressedsurprise over its foreign partner's in-demnity claim and accused Telenor ofviolating the confidentiality covenantsof their shareholders' agreement.

Unitech further said Telenor'saction was to malign its reputationand said it reserves its rights to takeappropriate action for damagescaused by the "breach of confiden-tiality obligation" by the Norwegiangroup. n

France Telecom SA may spendabout $2 billion to buy most of bil-lionaire Naguib Sawiris's stake intheir Egyptian wireless ventureand delist the operator.

France's largest telecommuni-cations company reached a prelim-inary agreement with Sawiris'sOrascom Telecom Media & Tech-nology Holding SAE over Egyptian

Co. for Mobile Services, the opera-tor known as Mobinil, at 202.5Egyptian pounds ($33.54) a share,it said today. That's 8.7 percentless than the price it would havepaid under an earlier option agree-ment with Sariwis. France Telecomwill offer the same price for Mobinilshares traded on the Cairo ex-change.

France Telecom is refocusingits business on fast-growing emerg-ing markets as mobile revenue inEurope stalls. The Paris- basedcompany has announced the sale ofits units in Switzerland and Austria,and in the past two years struckdeals to enter Morocco, Iraq and theDemocratic Republic of Congo. n

A European court has ruled thatsocial networks are not required toinstall filters to stop the sharing ofcopyrighted material. The Luxem-bourg-based EU Court of Justicefound that the installation of suchfilters would be too costly and com-plex and likely hamper the use of le-gitimate content.

The ruling comes after the Bel-gian Society of Authors, Composers,and Publishers (SABAM) sued Bel- gium-based social network Netlog

over the distribution of copyrightedmaterial on Netlog profiles.

SABAM lost another case backin November that called on ISPs toinstall filters that would stop illegaldownloads. As a result, SABAMsaid in a statement that it "takesnote of this ruling without sur-prise." Given the outcome of the No-vember case, it was expected the EUCourt of Justice "would adopt thesame position," SABAM said.

Saudi Oger Ltd., a construction and telecommuni-cations company, has received bids for its Oger TelecomLtd. unit, the majority owner of Turk Telekomu-nikasyon AS (TTKOM), said Vice Chairman MohammedHariri. Prices offered by potential buyers, all from theGulf region, weren’t satisfactory and Saudi Oger thinksit’s not the right time to sell the unit, the Istanbul-basednewspaper cited Hariri as saying.

Dubai-based Oger Telecom, which invests in telecom-munications companies, owns 55 percent of TurkTelekom, Turkey’s biggest phone company. n

Users of Google smart-phone wallets were beingwarned on Friday that thereis a way to crack pass codesintended to thwart thievesfrom going on illicit shoppingsprees. Zvelo Labs re-searcher Joshua Rubin was

featured in a video at thecompany's website demon-strating software that quick-

ly figures out a Google Wal-let personal identificationnumber (PIN), provided thecrook has the smartphone.

Rubin said that Googlehas been alerted to the vul-nerability and is movingswiftly to fix it. He has notmade his wallet "Cracker"application public. "GoogleWallet allows only five in-valid PIN entry attempts be-fore locking the user out,"Rubin said in a blog post.

"What makes Walleteasy for you to use nowmakes it easy for attackersto use; they can now spendyour money and credit justas if your phone were anATM card." n

Researchers revealed aflaw in the way data isscrambled to protect theprivacy of online banking,shopping and other kinds ofsensitive exchanges. A pro-gram used to generate ran-dom number sequences forencrypting digital informa-tion worked properly 99.8percent of the time, mean-ing that two out of everythousand "keys" wouldn't

thwart crooks or spies, thereport warned. "We foundthat the vast majority ofpublic keys work as in-tended," said a report basedon work by a team of USand European researchersled by Arjen Lenstra ofEcole Polytechnique Fed-erale de Lausanne (EPFL).

"A more disconcertingfinding is that two out ofevery one thousand RSA

moduli that we collectedoffer no security."

Online rights championElectronic Frontier Foun-dation (EFF) supplied keydata for the research, andsaid that Lenstra's teamfound tens of thousands ofkeys that essentially failedto guard data in supposed-ly encrypted online ses-sions. n

Motorola is hitting backhard with not only its firstIce Cream Sandwich hand-set, but with a smartphonerunning an Intel core. Thephone is an unnamed An-droid 4.0 device powered by

Intel's new Medfield plat-form.

What we can gather, isthat the new Motorolaphone will be button-free ,as well as sport a newerversion of the MotoBlur UI.According to sources, thecamera will be one of thehardware highlights of thedevice, offering 15-frameper second burst capture.Medfield though, will bethe selling point. n

Amazon Kindle Fire andother low-priced tablets cutinto Apple Inc.'s media-tablet market share in thefourth quarter, but Apple'snewly introduced iPhone 4Swas the strongest competi-tor for the iPad, according tomarket researcher IHS Inc.

The firm said Apple'sfourth-quarter iPad ship-ments were 15.4 million, up39 percent from the thirdquarter, but the device'sshare of the global media-tablet market fell to 57 per-cent from 64 percent in theprior quarter.

"Shipments of the iPadline fell short of IHS esti-

mates in the fourth quarteras many loyal Apple cus-tomers devoted their dol-lars to shiny new alterna-tives," said Rhoda Alexan-der, senior manager of tabletand monitor research forIHS. "However, the primaryalternative wasn't the Kin-dle Fire -- which debuted tosolid sales in the fourthquarter -- but Apple's owniPhone 4S smartphone." n


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Egyptian mobile phoneservices company, Orascom,said it was holding advancedtalks with France Telecomover the future of mobile op-erator Mobinil.

France Telecom controls71.25 percent of Mobiniland has been seeking to ex-pand its control over theEgyptian mobile phoneprovider. In April 2010 anEgyptian administrativecourt ruled against a FranceTelecom bid to take overMobinil, cancelling a previ-ous decision by the marketregulator. n

French telecommunica-tions equipment maker Al-catel-Lucent caught in-vestors by surprise with a2011 profit of more than abillion euros ($1.33 billion),its first positive result in sixyears.

In 2010 the group hadposted a loss of 334 million.

The rebound was un-veiled along with news of apositive fourth-quarter cashflow and sent Alcatel sharessoaring in midday trading tolead gainers on the Parisstock exchange.

"The group's results arefar better than expected,"commented Arnaud deChampvallier, head of Tur-got Asset Management.

"Many investors hadgiven up on its stock becausethe group was very disap-pointing and its strategywas confused," he said. "Butwith these kinds of results,part of the market mightpile back in." Alcatel man-aged its full-year profit of1.09 billion euros despite a2.1 slip in sales to 15.3 bil-lion. n

Google on assured usersof its smartphone walletsthat the mobile-age tech-nology thwarts thieves bet-ter than old-school cash orcredit cards.

"Mobile payments aregoing to become more com-mon in the coming years,and we will learn muchmore as we continue to de-velop Google Wallet," Googlepayments vice presiden-tOsama Bedier said in ablog post.

"In the meantime, youcan be confident that thedigital wallet you carry pro-vides defenses that plasticand leather simply don't."

A Google Wallet featurethat lets people load prepaidcardinformation in smart-phones for spending wasre-activated this week afterbeing shut off for a few daysto fix a potential securityvulnerability. n

Dubai: Kuwait’sWataniya reported a 57 per-cent rise in its fourth-quarternet profit as the telecoms op-erator included more con-solidated earnings from itsTunisian unit.

Wataniya, majority-owned by Qatar Telecom(Qtel), made a net profit of38.2 million dinars ($137.4million) in the fourth quarter,compared with a profit of24.3 million dinars in thesame period a year earlier.

In 2011, Wataniya raisedits stake in its unit Tunisianato 75 percent. This enabledWataniya to consolidate 100percent of Tunisiana’s rev-enue from the first-quarter of2011 onwards, up from 50percent, while it now in-cludes three-quarters ofTunisiana’s profit, also upfrom 50 percent. n

Orascom inadvanced talkswith FranceTelecom

Alcatel unveilsfirst profit insix years

Googletightens gripon smartphonewallets

Social networks don't filter content: EU Court Saudi Oger gets bids fortelecommunications unit

Google users warned of threatto smartphone wallets

Flaw found in securing onlinetransactions

Unitech in war with Telenor WataniyaTelecom 4Qprofit rises 57pc

France Telecom to buy Sawiris's Orascom for $2 bn

Motorola teams up withIntel to launch ICS phone

Apple's 4Q tablet sharefalls to 57pc

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If you have stayed in London for some years, you would know that carrying around an umbrella is always a good idea – as well as for those living in tropical countries, as the umbrella not only keeps the glare and heat off from your skin, it also makes sure you remain somewhat dry to a certain extent should the heavens decide to feel extra generous and pour out its abundant “blessings” onto the masses down here. Well, if you are going to tote an umbrella around, you might as well make the most of it with the £19.99 Color Changing Umbrella.

The name of this umbrella gives the game away, where this rather compact device will feature a white raindrop pattern located around the canopy flitted past and sprinkled some magic dust on it.

Color Changing Umbrella USB Floppy Disk Drive

Nikon is back with yet another digital camera for the mass market, pushing out its Coolpix L810 shooter this time around. Just what does the L810 have in terms of improved performance over its predecessors? For starters, it will come with a CCD image sensor that has an effective pixel count of 16.1-million pixels, in addition to a 26x optical zoom NIKKOR lens which is capable of covering angles of view from the wide-angle 22.5 to super telephoto 585 mm (equivalent in 35-mm format), and a new lens-shift vibration reduction (VR) function.

Despite all of those capabilities, the Coolpix L810 will still deliver the same form factor that will be able to support a firm, steady grip and side zoom control which has become the signature physical format for its predecessors, delivering high performance without a second thought.

Nikon Coolpix L810 delivers super zoom capability

This would clearly place the Sony DSC-TX200V as the highest-resolution digital camera that is currently on offer in the “point and shoot” market segment, and when coupled with the spanking new BIONZ processor, both of them will work in tandem to create images as well as video files with extremely low noise.

Just what else do you expect the Sony DSC-TX200V to carry? This advanced model is also tipped to deliver lightning-fast AutoFocus speeds of approximately 0.13 seconds in daytime and 0.25 seconds in low-light situations. Bear in mind that the speeds quoted are just on paper, when in real life, they might vary depending on shooting conditions. With such shooting speeds, they will more or less ensure you are able to capture the right moment at all times.

Sony DSC-TX200V digital camera is super slim

When we talk about reflexology, most of the time we are drawn to something that has to do with the feet – but the folks over at Hammacher have very different ideas of associating the verb with, by introducing the $119.95 Hand Reflexology Massager. This device will apply a gentle, soothing massage to both the top and bottom of your hand, making me feel as though I ought to place an order for this puppy right away considering the amount of typing that I do each day in order to bring home the bacon.

This is a machine that intends to replicate the hand reflexology treatment, where it will compress trigger points on the palm and back of hand using a mechanical air pressure system which kneads the hand. A bunch of physical therapists realized that this massager has proven itself to be effective in relieving pain and discomfort in the hands, and thanks to its soothing rhythm, it is capable of relieving tension.

Hand Reflexology Massager

For those of you out there who tend to be a little bit careless with your belongings, no matter how expensive they are, then it would always be better to pick up something which is cheap instead of gunning for an expensive make or model all the time. After all, it is rather difficult to predict just when you are going to be at your butterfingers best – which is why Panasonic figured out the consumer digital camera market has a need for the Panasonic Lumix TS20 rugged digital camera.

This entry-level shooter is not only shockproof and dustproof, it is also waterproof, so that you can continue to shoot photos with this puppy even when it pours outside, or should you want to go snorkelling and take underwater shots, the Lumix TS20 would also deliver results just as well.

Panasonic Lumix TS20 rugged digital camera

The famous 5.25″ floppy – single-sided or double-sided, sir? Imagine swapping such disks when playing games, and installation proved to be a pain when you have seven, nay, eight of these floppies to go through. 3.5″ floppies were far sturdier and less prone to damage, so why not usher in a modern interpretation of a retro device? The £26.99 USB Floppy Disk Drive is as what it says – all you need to do is plug this into any available USB port, and it is capable of transferring all 1.44MB of data on a 3.5″ floppy disk over to your computer. Pretty pointless actually, and in this day and age, probably the only things you can carry around on the floppy would be a couple of sized down images and perhaps a text file or two.


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Vizio showed of a number of cool new products at CES 2012 last month, one of those was their new 21:9 aspect ratio LED HDTV, and now the company has announced that the device will launch in March. The Vizio 21:9 CinemaWide LED HDTV will retail for $3,500 when it launches in March, and the device will let you watch widescreen movies without the need for the black bars that you get on standard HDTV’s.

It will also upscale 16:9 ratio videos to fit the 58 inch display which features a 2560 x 1080 resolution, and the HDTV also features passive 3D and comes with four pairs of 3D glasses. As well as being able to watch you favourite movies in the 21:9 format, the Vizio 21:9 CinemaWide LED HDTV also comes with a range of built in applications.

Vizio’s 21:9 CinemaWide LED HTDV MSI AMD R7950 GPU Video Cards

We have featured a number of devices designed to help provide a more stable and smooth platform for camcorders and cameras here on Geeky Gadgets. Including the awesomeCineSkates Camera Slider which started its journey on Kickstarter not so long ago. Now a new design has been launched by Polly Systems called the Polly, which uses a flywheel driven chassis to hold your camera and keep everything stable as your record.

Polly has been designed to be ultra compact, portable and a flexible solution to create and capture smooth tracking shots. The flywheel gear allows you to move the camera extra smoothly on flat ground. Tracking shots which would normally require at least one assistant or even a motion control system.

Polly Camera TrolleyHelps Stabilise Your Recordings

Pentax has officially announced the new highly anticipated Pentax K-01 mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera. Which is equipped with the same K-mount lens mount used by Pentax’s DSLR lenses. The design for the new Pentax K-01 has been created by Australian industrial designer Marc Newson, featuring a rubberised, ribbed grip covering on an aluminium frame.

The Pentax K-01 has been built around a 16-megapixel APS-C sensor, providing roughly 13 times the size of the 1/2.3-inch-type sensor found in the Pentax Q. ISO settings range from ISO 100 to ISO 25,600, and burst mode provides 6 frames per second capture at full resolution, and the camera will capture 1080p video at 24 fps, 25 fps, and 30 fps, as well as 720p video at 60 fps.

Pentax K-01 Mirrorless Camera

UK mobile carrier Three has just announced the Three Web Cube, which is basically a mobile alternative to broadband for your home, and the device is HSPA+ enabled. According to Three the Web Cube will offer typical download speeds of between 2Mbps to 5Mbps with a maximum speed in excess of 10 Mbps, and you can also connect up to five different devices to the web cube at once.

Three will be offering the Web Cube with a one month rolling contract, and 10GB of data per month will cost you £15 and there is also an up front charge of £59.99 for the Web Cube.

This is for a contract free version of the device, basically with the one month rolling contract you will be able to cancel it at any time, they will also offer a 24 month contract for the Web Cube.

Web Cube 3G HSPA+ Broadband Alternative

DVDO has this week unveiled a new addition to their product range with the launch of the DVDO Air. A wireless HD streaming solution that will enable you to stream HD quality video and audio from a cable/satellite box, Blu- ray, DVD, AVR, etc. to another wirelessly.

The wireless AIR system has been created by DVDO to transfer full, uncompressed 1080p HD, enabling you can watch 3D Blu-ray movies and enjoy full 7.1 channel surround sound without the need for the player and HDTV to be near each other.

The DVDO Air is equipped with 60-GHz wireless technology which achieves the highest performance and provides interference-free operation. Because other wireless devices such as smartphones and WiFi networks use much lower frequency radio signals.

DVDO Air Wireless HD Media Streaming System Unveiled

The launch of three new video cards for gaming enthusiasts and overclockers fromMSI. All through the video cards use the new AMD R7950 GPU inside and have different cooling solutions and presumably different clock speeds. The coolest of three cards uses MSI’s custom Twin Frozr cooling solution. That custom cooling solution promises 10°C lower temperatures and 13.7 dB less noise than traditional cooling systems. Better cooling means higher clock speeds to overclockers. MSI claims that you can overclock up to 37.5% more with the custom cooling solution.

It’s not clear what the clock speeds are on any of the new video cards. We do know that the video cards use military class III components.


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Immortality has its drawbacks. Yes, you do get to live a life free from the health concerns that haunt mortal beings, but the rolling snowball of past regret can incapacitate you in your day-to-day living. Outstanding gifts rarely exist without some drawback, and that frustrating dichotomy is exhibited in NeverDead. Like Bryce, its perpetually living protagonist, NeverDead has abundant strengths. A number of unique elements urge you to continue playing to see how this demon-hunting tale concludes. But the pieces fail to fit together, which results in a rocky adventure in which exciting highs are frequently interrupted by maddening lows. Uneven as it may be, if you can brave the agonizing setbacks, NeverDead delivers enough riveting successes to keep you invested.

As the title of the game implies, Bryce cannot be killed. However, though neither pain nor death causes him fear, he can still be put out of commission by his abundant enemies. Attacks cause his arms, legs, and even head to pop cleanly from his body, and in your dismembered form, you have to scour the playing field to reassemble those pieces. Obviously, your actions are affected by what part of your body is removed. If, for instance, you lose your left leg to a ravaging puppy, Bryce mutters about his absent appendage while hopping around one-legged. Losing an arm is handled in an even more interesting way. Once disarmed, you can no longer aim your reticle at those attacking you, but because you still have control over your fingers, you can spray bullets wildly from wherever your arm is currently located. This is particularly useful if an enemy is gnawing on your fleshy forearm.

When the story finally wraps up, you're treated to a cliff-hanger that would segue nicely into a sequel. Normally, such a perfunctory ending would be frustrating because you want a strong resolution to the events you just played through. However, in the case of NeverDead, it only reminds you of the untapped potential that is the most striking element of this game. The ideas that separate this from other shooters are a lot of fun, but the edges are so rough that it can be difficult to enjoy these pieces. A second game could be used to iron out the kinks. But that's an idea that's not worth dwelling on. NeverDead doesn't have a sequel, and may never get one, so what you're left with is a game bursting with ideas that it struggles to showcase.

By making your body the controller, the Kinect has promised the fulfillment of many fantasies, from being an action hero to a dancer on stage. Being a kung-fu superstar on the level of Bruce Lee is a fantasy many have had at one time or another, and Kung-Fu High Impact has some nice ideas about how to make that fantasy a reality by using the backdrop of a comic-book-style superhero story. Unfortunately, even in the tiniest sense, the game doesn't make you feel like a martial arts master but, rather, wears you out with imprecise controls and boring game design.

There are a few modes outside of the single-player story, but they operate the same way. Survival mode drops you into a stage to see how long you can last before dying (either by losing all your health or by real, physical exhaustion). Mayhem Designer allows you to choose exactly which enemies you want to fight and where while giving you a small selection of other options to tweak, such as speed. Multiplayer deviates from the formula ever so slightly by allowing friends to use gamepads to control enemies in the game while the main Kinect player fights them. The laughs in this mode will probably be more at the Kinect player's expense than from actual fun being had.

It's tempting to think that this game might have been better if it took video or pictures of you performing each motion and then let you play as your digitized self with a standard controller. However, even with precise controls, Kung-Fu High Impact wouldn't be very exciting. Environments are bland and uninteresting, enemies are brainless and uninventive, and the boring Story mode is over within a couple of hours of playing at most. In fact, without the motion-gaming hook, Kung-Fu High Impact might be an even less appealing product than it is now because there's at least a little bit of goofy fun to be had by pretending to fight monsters in your living room. But as a retail Kinect product, there is too much in the way of either frustrating or boring content. You should do your kung-fu fighting somewhere else.

Disneyland is one of the only places in the world where you can stroll down an idealized version of a small-town American Main Street, visit a haunted mansion, get a hug from Mickey Mouse, soar over London and into Neverland with Peter Pan, and have other wondrous experiences that are normally available only in the imagination. Disneyland Adventures tries to make these and other quintessentially Disneyland experiences available to you in the comfort of your own home. And in many ways, it succeeds. The park is re-created here with impressive accuracy and detail, and the attractions you can visit admirably capture the spirit of the rides that inspired them. Unfortunately, flawed controls mar nearly every aspect of Disneyland Adventures, making what should be a thoroughly enjoyable visit to the happiest place on earth as frustrating as it is fantastical.

Some attractions (or sections of attractions) fare better. The sword fights that cap off Peter Pan's Flight and Pirates of the Caribbean are good fun; you wave your arm vertically or horizontally to swing your sword in those directions, and you have plenty of time to leap over or duck under your nefarious opponents' attacks. Other attractions focus on dancing. It's a Small World has you dance along with dolls that are doing traditional dances from around the world, and the Disney Princess Fantasy Faire imitates the format of Dance Central, with the sequence of dance moves you must follow scrolling up the screen. These simple movements are recognized by the game, so you can focus on dancing along with Ariel as she sings "Part of Your World" rather than struggling with the controls.

But more often than not, the controls come between you and your adventures in Disneyland. Whether you're trying to take a picture of one of the many hidden Mickeys throughout the park or you're bouncing down a country path with Tigger, the game's failure to recognize and respond to your movements frequently takes you out of the moment. It's too bad, too, because the park here so accurately captures the atmosphere of the place itself, and the attractions offer such a visually diverse assortment of experiences.84

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