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PTA has conducted a meeting of various stakeholders and industry representatives on the issue of PKNIC today in Islamabad. There have been a series of interesting posts on TGP on this topic since this morning and we expect a detailed unofficial minutes of meeting by one caring participant of this meeting soon.
The You Tube blocking (orders by PTA to ISPs can be found here) in Pakistan has taken the local blogosphere by the storm - for obvious reason. The news was broken and extensively discussed at various local mailing lists.
The highly sticky video website contributes as much as 1/10th of the entire Internet bandwidth according to some estimates. That’s a crazy big statement.
Every technology blog that has any Pakistani connection has a post about this major disruptive development. While most of the fellows are obviously mad on this blocking, my take is that we might be better off having this issue. The persistent problem (of Internet censorship done the wrong way) is not being intermittently flashed to us any more - instead, this event throws it right into our faces.
That Internet censorship is bad and useless is an established fact but that it happens worldwide in both developing and developed worlds is even more established fact. In the absence of compelling Internet applications in Pakistan, Internet remains the sole killer application for the broadband mass uptake the government appears to be so concerned about.
Hence, given all the boom that Pakistan is experiencing right now (and hopefully after the recent elections results of which have so far pleasantly surprised both Pakistanis and the rest of the world), it is important that we ensure that Internet remains the platform that is relevant to the population and that the Internet consumption keeps an upward consumption trend. The system needs to graduate on this front and move towards improving our infrastructure to be able to keep up with the bare minimum implementations of the various rulings given under the law of the land by the higher courts (which, no doubt, need a big and continuous help that will help them understand the technical intricacies of the cyberspace).
This blockage is huge in terms of impact. Everyone will feel it. From the end users to the media companies and micro content producers to the civil society relying on the powers of You Tube and packet video prevalence, everyone is going to talk about it. Now is the time stop using Cisco ACLs and use layer 4 solutions where the filtering must happen.
I believe this will force the PTA and the government (and the trigger happy PTCL’s PIE) to upgrade their infrastructures so that the delicate balance between civil liberties and our societal sensitivities is well kept.
Universal Service Fund (USF) is the company formed to make use of the USF money that PTA has been generating out of the booming telecoms market of Pakistan. So far, USF has worked towards using its funds for the spread of voice services in the under-served markets of Pakistan. Of late, Ministry of Information Technology & Telecommunication has intended to guide USF to do the same towards increasing broadband penetration too.
USF, after some initial work, has concluded that there are no particular areas that could be defined as ‘under-served’ in terms of Pakistan and rather the entire Pakistan is under-served. USF has now asked MoITT to pass a ‘determination’ towards the same fact allowing USF to utilize the funds anywhere and everywhere in Pakistan.
MoITT has published a 39 page study document on the web which seeks to establish this fact (that the entire Pakistan is under-served in broadband services). A consultation session was held in Islamabad yesterday to discuss this matter with the industry. The proceedings and details of the session are still to come out but here are my initial takes on the document and its contents:
The major conclusion points of the documents are:
- Pakistan’s broadband penetration is very low
- Currently there are around 100K Broadband subscribers which need to be taken to 1.6 million by 2010 (1% of population)
- This low penetration is earning bad scores for us under the WSIS measuring criteria & there is a strong need to improve the same
- Three approaches have been suggested for the GoP’s intervention in this ‘dismal’ state of broadband affairs:
- No intervention - leave it to market; slow broadband growth expected
- Bundle with Basic Services - only rural areas will benefit; existing broadband provides will loose
- Tackle issue with a new format - dedicated efforts are expected to yield better results; divided in various phases
The document assumes or maintains that fixed broadband is a dwindling trend and wireless broadband will finally prevail (page 23). While this is true for the last mile domain, the infrastructure is ALWAYS wired (read fiber). The guys at the MoITT need to be pointed to this omission in consideration. Pakistan need to have a good wired infrastructure before we can decide which of the two last miles options (wired or wireless) is good for us.
The study also repeatedly mentions the similarity between low tele-density and low broadband penetration. However, the applications/demand side difference between the two (voice and data) is repeatedly ignored. While it is true that the gap between 2.7% tele-density (from where our telecoms boom started off) and current 50% tele-density was one of the reasons for the boom, it was the application (voice) that was ready to exploit this gap. In the case of broadband, a similar gap exists and this gap is what the study is considering as an opportunity. However, as obvious, the difference between our last success (in cellular voice) and current challenge is that of application - do we have compelling applications that will drive the growth that can ride this gap?
The document also does not considers demand creation at all. While supply end enhancements (by way of USF subsidies towards network deployments etc) are more than welcome, a significant portion of the efforts must go towards demand creation activities. Mandatory use of electronic facilities in the business circles, tax cuts for ISPs interconnecting with each other, financial benefits to private TV channels to host streaming servers inside Pakistan, creation of public/open Internet Exchanges etc are all example of such efforts.
PTA is soliciting proposals for Consultancy Services on the issue of establishment of local Internet Exchange Points in Pakistan.
The last date of submission of such proposal is around the end of Feb 2008. Let us hope PTA gets good consultants to get them going in the right direction and speed.
In this relation, here is an interesting presentation on IXP by Guarab Raj of SANOG and PCH fame.
It comes as a stress reliever to read that PTA is finally inching towards pushing the local Internet industry towards a saner state where local traffic gets cleared locally without wasting the countries foreign exchange and without costings the end users hundreds of useless milliseconds of RTT delays.
PTA has issued an RFP that seeks consultation services on the topic of local Internet exchanges and peering points. I am not sure what direct role can PTA play in private peering as it is mostly a two-party arrangement for their own respective good with little intervention required by any third party. However, the IX domain will greatly benefit from PTA exerting its role and responsibility in bringing major players on-board.
Also, the move is going to have a direct financial impact on the top-of-the-chain IP bandwidth providers like PTCL and TW who currently do not discriminate between local and transit bandwidth and make money for both types of the bandwidths alike. With IX infrastructures in place, customer IP requirements for local needs will drop down in the short term but, as a rule, IX infrastructure will promote the overall appetite of the industry for more transit bandwidth as a whole.
Let’s hope for the best.
The quality of the technology related journalism in the local press has been questionable for obvious reasons. Having a number of good friends in many local media outfits, I can say with confidence that none of them have any dedicated technology reporters or journalists. This excludes those who actually work for technology magazines like Spider and Netmag. This lack of technology reporters results in reports that are poor at best and grossly incorrect at worst.
Consider, for example, this news item in today’s The News International. The report starts off with an incorrect title - calling MNP a PTCL issue rather than a PTA issue. That is not all, the report actually presents the scenario as if the MNP thing was some wire that suddenly got snapped and ‘has failed’. Using the words fail or failed repeatedly, the reports gives an impression as if the failure has been officially concluded by someone and that the feature is about to be taken back.
Quite misleading if you see how some of the companies are actively using MNP to their advantage.
A better reporting would have shed lights on both success and problems of MNP and would have talked about as to how the unawareness amongst the subscribers and incorrect or unavailable subscriber documentation are major problems in wide adoption of MNP.
This report from Daily Times provides a good activity roundup relating to new Telecommunication initiatives in Azad Jammu Kashmir and Northern Areas. From the report:
In the wake of October 8 earthquake, the PTA granted temporary permission to mobile phone companies operating in Pakistan for provision of services in quake-hit areas. Later on, they were invited to obtain permanent licenses for AJK and NAs against the ILF of $10 million each.
Subsequently four mobile companies Mobilink, Ufone, Warid and Telenor acquired licenses by paying 50 percent of the license fee ($5 million) each upfront as per the terms of the payment. The $20 million (Rs 1.2 billion) collected by PTA from four operators has been deposited with the AJK Council Secretariat and Chief Secretary, NAs in the ratio of 77:23 based on the population of the two areas. Their share was Rs 927.696 million and Rs 277.104 million respectively. In view of special circumstances, PTA has not deducted any fee from the amount.
The fifth mobile license for AJ&K and NAs has recently been issued to CMPak (Paktel) for which the fees would be deposited under the same arrangements. All five mobile companies will pay remaining 50 percent (i.e. $5 million each) in 10 equal annual installments.
It may be mentioned that, with the introduction of mobile phone services people of these areas are getting enhanced communication facilities. So far, cellular operators in AJK and NAs have provided one million mobile connections. Mobile service is available in the following areas of AJK including Bagh, Bhimber, Bharhing, Kotli, Muzzafferabad, Palandri, Rawalakot, Mirpur, Dhirkot, Ghari Duppatta, Hattian Bala, Dhudyal, Barnala, Kakra, Islam Gargh, Dirkot, Chamankot, Baloch, Sehnsa, KhuiRatta, Hajira, Tarar Khel, Abbas Pur, Jaraee, Rajdhani. Thraowchi, Puna, Sumani, Charoi, Fatepur, Barnala, Paniola, etc. In Northern Areas Gilgit, Hunza, Chilas, Skardu, Shigar, Danyor have been provided mobile services.
Moreover, Special Communication Organisation (SCO) which was the major provider of telecom services in the region till very recent is working on its several developmental activities including Rural Telecom Uplift Project Phase-II for provision of 80,000 telephone lines (along with 266 km Optic Fibre), enhancement of GSM capacity by 65,000 lines, laying of 570 km optic fibre, 26 digital exchanges with VSAT connectivity and laying of outside plant (OSP) in NAs.
SCO is also planning to lay optical fibre cable link for international connectivity between China and Pakistan.
SCO has also taken initiatives to provide Internet services to these areas in the form of Dialup, DSL and CDMA 1X services by entering into O&M agreements with existing providers in Pakistan.
Telenor Pakistan is following Mobilink to hit the PCO segment. Cellular News (and others) are reporting that the service, branded as ApnaPCO, is starting off with services in the impoverished southern part of the Punjab. Telenor is said to have entered into an alliance with the National Rural Support Program (NRSP)
Wireless local loop operators in Pakistan are rightly considered smaller boys as compared to the GSM group, the bigger boys of telecoms. When the market was really picking up subscribers in the past 18 months, the GSM group was complaining that the WLL entities are entering into their domain - mobility beyond one base station - and hence causing great losses to their business which has a very high license and operational cost. While PTA determined in favor of the GSM crowd, this never got implemented as smaller WLL operators cited VPTCL of doing the same and hence asking for an compliance from PTCL’s WLL wing before they do the same. (The limited mobility requirements as put up by PTA were debated as being impractical given the technology’s inherent mobile roots and the way the frequency has been auctioned in Pakistan for WLL services).
Still today, Diallog (Islamabad), Telecard’s GoCDMA and PTCL’s VPTCL are virtually mobile in cities where they are operational. On-net free calling combined with city-wide mobility plays well for the WLL operators who were winning certain market share from the GSM Operators.
ARPUs in the PCO sector (which, until now, used to be a WLL speciality) are very high as compared to the ARPUs of GSM market (of course, the sheer size of the two segments off-sets the effect in the favor of GSM). So the GSM guys stopped complaining and started working. First, it was Mobilink to start their PCO service and now Telenor is taking the same route.
As the boundaries between fixed phones, cell phones and PCOs blurs due to general rate reduction, the oxygen supply for wireless local loop players relying heavily on PCO business, will be on the drop in the coming days. It seems probable that it would now be the WLL people crying foul on the GSM crowd on their getting into their business.
As projected by G&W about the regulation domain overlap on the Telenor Mobile TV announcement, the Norwegians got a call from PEMRA. Dawn reports today:
Telenor launched TV mobile service late last month without obtaining a licence from Pemra. “Pemra has issued a notice to Telenor, seeking explanation about its mobile phone TV service without its permission,” a spokesman for the authority told this correspondent here on Thursday. ..
The PTA/PEMRA confusion on the regulation of the topic of Telenor’s Mobile TV, it seems, will continue for a while. As we tipped earlier, Telenor might have avoided all this hassle had they named the baby correctly as a Value Added Service. But marketeers, in their efforts of being the first ones, often ask for trouble.
On a related note, Farhan estimates that it will cost Rs 225 per hour to use the service. Hmm.. any couch potatoes around?
P.S: Telenor is happy on its Pakistan operations Q1 results.
When MNP was introduced a few weeks ago, everyone had their own idea of the elephant they were feeling in a dark night.
Some said the stuff is not picking up, later to be corrected later by PTA that the number is running in thousands in the first month of the service introduction. Cellular-News say:
Speaking at a conference last week, the Chairman of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, Maj. Gen (R) Shahzada Alam Malik said that since the introduction of mobile number portability in the country, more than 10 thousand subscribers have availed the MNP facility while 20 thousand have already posted their requests for shifting their cellphone numbers along with the code from one operator to another. ..
Yet, MNP remains a technical jargon for most of the cell users in Pakistan. Ask the average joe teefa on the street and he’d draw a blank on this possibility. MNP needs neutral marketing from PTA - jargon free, crisp and right in the local lingo.
True, everyone (Mobilink, Telenor, Ufone, Warid, Paktel, Instaphone) is flashing the MNP badge on their websites but this is not the right marketing MNP needs right now.
The mission of MNP - forcing operators to deliver better service to keep the MNP-enabled churn low - is best served if PTA or Pakistan MNP Database - the co-funded company at the center of portability service - advertises the MNP possibilities to the general public. Am I am not talking about ‘instruction sounding’ announcements that most of the target audience will overlook thinking it relates to a technical domain. I am talking about taking the publicity of MNP to the level of engaging a media partner, making the information and the message get across in the masses.
I am sure the sponsors of PMD , especially the bigger ones, would not like the idea. Even the small ones who at first would like to see MNP helping them will appear supportive might not want to let the chaos loose. So the best entity for MNP promotion might be PTA. I am not sure if the USF could be used for such an activity (which does not come specifically under rural telecommunication infrastructure enhancement) but if financing this campaign is an issue, the money could be put to good use.
With right marketing and awareness, the PMD could soon be in need for more hardware and a license upgrade for the Telecordia MNP solution.
Telegoegraphy is reporting on Warid’s further investment in Pakistan in the form of a $100m loan from IFC:
…..private sector investment arm of the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), is to extend a USD100 million loan and arrange a syndicated loan of USD140 million for Paktel rival Warid Telecom. According to an IFC document seen by Dow Jones Newswires, Warid Telecom is seeking the loans to finance the construction, expansion and operation of a nationwide GSM network. The project, which began in June 2006, is estimated to cost USD 1.4 billion and is expected to be completed in June 2009.
Government of Pakistan is also reportedly considering to offer three nationwide UMTS (3G) licenses.
This blog had a posting disconnect between Nov 2006 and April 2007 owing to the wordpress.com blog ban in Pakistan. The last story before the disconnect was about Paktel which, at that time, threatened to stop its operations because of the losses it was making. In January, China Mobile bought Paktel from Millicomm International who was desperately seeking an exit from Pakistan in-line with their international corporate strategy.
China Mobile has announced (on Saturday) that they are investing $400 million and a brand name change for Paktel.
According to China Knowledge, China Mobile is to invest US$400 million to extend its network in Pakistan, said company CEO Wang Jianzhou at the Boao Forum on Hainan Island on Saturday.
Wang said the company will step up improving sales channels and building new brands in Pakistan next year, adding that a wireless data transmission system will be built in the Pakistan.
And Flair, the showbiz-looking-telecommunication magazine (Issue April 2007, Page 84) says the brand name change is from Paktel to CM-Pak. How good or bad is this choice (if the Flair report is correct) is subjective.
The China Mobile has sought the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) consent to swap the Paktel mobile company name as CM-Pak, the name under which the company intends to operate. The China Mobile that took over Paktel from Millicom International after paying dues has now formally requested the regulator for change of Paktel’s name. Officials from PTA has confirmed that it was approached by the China Mobile with the application that it wanted to operate under the name of CM-Pak, but added no decision has been taken so far.
China Mobile has pumped in $700 million in the Pakistan telecommunication sector since taking over the management control of Paktel. The company will invest $2 billion in the next three years (till 2009) to expand its network, an official of the Paktel told.
In other Paktel related news, the head office of the company in Islamabad is now inundated with Chinese nationals that have been brought in by the company to take more direct control of the things.
Paktel is also reported to have been talking to Multinet for access to dark fiber pairs on its Project Ittehad similar to the deal between Multinet and Telenor announced in December 2006.
When Om Malik quoted FCC Commissioner Michael Copps saying:
the biggest issue in formulating a coherent broadband strategy is the “lack of reliable government data. Until we know where we stand today, how can we possibly build the broadband future that our nation deserves?”
Whoa! That’s FCC from the US.
I feel Pakistan’s efforts towards formulating a broadband policy might not be that bad after all. The policy went through a open public commentary before being finalized. Or may be, the regulators have the same problem everywhere.
P.S: BTW, Pakistan BB Policy defines (see page 3 of the Policy Document) 128 kbps download as ‘broadband’.
The hoax took the nation by storm. And it actually became a social virus much to the delight of whoever must have released it in the first place. And true to the traditions of the ‘Jinn in London Mosque‘ and ‘Bomb Blast at Grumander’ news, this was aired on the TVs only to be later declared as a hoax in the slides.
We saw a number of interesting things happening out there. As if the constant calls from friends and knocks at the office room from colleagues was not enough, my doctor wife wore the most serious and somber of the faces I have seen on her in the past seven years when she asked me: ‘What will happen now?’ - taking the troublesome news item as a ground reality in the first place. And every tech savvy person in my circle had similar stories to tell about from their respective surroundings.
On the face of it, it seems a bad situation that we had the hoax getting so successful in the public. However, this very event once again proved the fact that the nation has truly gone cellular in the past few years with everyone - okay ‘almost’ everyone - having a piece of this convenience. We cannot blame the masses for the lack of technical acumen to separate a hoax from a real trouble - this is how the general public behaves the world over. The other silver lining very much visible was the voluntary squad of techies that stood up and fought the hoax in a distributed manner. This again is a sign of the youngsters getting a hang on the technology and its possibility brackets.
Since the majority of the hoax message talked about ‘an unknown or weird’ number being the culprit, I am tempted to ponder on the possibility of this being an attempt to curb illegal voice termination where it is given that the origination number would be hidden behind a dummy number which generally is also weird and distinct from regular numbers that we receive during the day. Of course, such an measure to counter illegal call termination would be silly for it will have a production cycle of days if not hours but it seems probable that for as long as the hoax caused the greatest panic, illegal calls were probably not terminated into Pakistan 
Another thought that quickly hit after we saw the panic waves around the network was whether the industry has now reached a state of stability and harmony to do a structured search from the SMS records of the six cellular operators and make an attempt to track where the stuff started from in the first place. Even if we are too late, or the records are too many or the stuff originated out of Pakistan, an effort in this direction will sure teach us a thing or two. Internet is even more complex and multi-partied and yet virus and malware writers do get identified when efforts are put in. This would be more productive than the pacifying announcement by PTA on the same topic.
And finally, since a lot of friends were debating whether there is a possibility of this being crafted by the cellular operators in the first place for increased SMS traffic between their users, I can only confirm that this is a long established practice in the operators to ’seed’ interesting and most-likely-to-be-forwarded messages to small number of customers every now and then only to see a ripple effect of the messages moving around the network, brining in revenue.
In late 2006, PTA determined that PTCL needs to revise its bandwidth prices downward to help keep the country moving towards a broadband friendly environment and to match and compete in the region as a country. PTCL responded back by first moving Lahore High Court against the determination (and being declined the plea). The new leadership at PTCL continues the historic attitude and has now moved the Supreme Court against the determination. The News has the complete story here.
KARACHI: The Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL) ñ the largest telephony and the only Internet backbone provider - has challenged Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA)’s decision to cut Internet bandwidth tariff in the Supreme Court after its appeal was dismissed by the Lahore High Court.
In a recent move the privatised entity appeared firm to counter the regulator’s October 2006 verdict in which it reduced the PTCL’s Internet and data circuits prices by 20 to 30 per cent effective from January 2007.
“The PTCL management filed an appeal before the LHC against the PTA’s decision and initially succeeded in obtaining a stay order but the appeal was finally dismissed by the LHC in February 2007,” said a source privy to the development.
“Earlier, the PTA issued another determination on reductions of bandwidth prices in June 2006 which was set aside by the LHC and the case was remanded back to the PTA to decide afresh within two months.”
The LHC in its February 2007 order noted “earlier the case was remanded with the direction that the appellant (PTCL) be provided an opportunity of being heard. The perusal of the impugned order shows that every objection of the PTCL/appellant has been dealt with in detail and has been disposed of by the Authority (PTA).
The Authority has given reasons for making the order and while determining the tariff and has exercised its jurisdiction fairly, justly and in advancement for the purpose of enactment on the mandate of Section 24-A of the General Clauses Act, 1897 in consonance with the above case law”.
The decision went on to say: “For what has been discussed above, I do not find any reason to interfere with the well reasoned order passed by the PTA. This being so, this appeal fails and is dismissed”.
However, the source said, the PTCL was reluctant to implement the PTA’s order and to the disappointment of Internet and broadband users, it had now moved the Supreme Court against the LHC decision.
He said the PTA started the process of bandwidth price reduction in March 2006 upon receipt of a directive from President General Pervez Musharraf, who while meeting a delegation of Pakistani entrepreneurs from the United States, directed the PTA to rationalise the bandwidth rates in the country.
“But industry analysts believe the PTCL’s management is fully determined to block the PTA’s decision to cut bandwidth tariffs, as it may affect its annual revenue negatively. Now the PTA is in a dilemma on non-implementation of its orders by the PTCL,” said the source.
“When competitive backbones would be established and gone operational, the PTCL would reduce its prices and the PTA would then be asking PTCL not to undercut private operators.” The PTCL reported a sharp fall in half-year net profit as revenue from international calls fell, but analysts forecast a stronger second half.
The PTCL, Pakistan’s second-largest listed firm, said it earned net profit of Rs8.37 billion in the six months to December 31, 2006, 22.71 per cent lower than Rs10.83 billion in the year-ago period.
Millicom International Cellular (MIC) - the parent company of Paktel GSM has annonced that it plans an exit from the Pakistan cellular market. The shock was delivered in a press release dated 13th November 2006 (pdf available here) on its corporate website the international cellular group that specializes in operating in virgin cellular markets.
This news is definitely high-impact. First, its bad for the so-far positive image of the Pakistan Telecom market which has shown good growth over the past few years with tele-density reportedly reaching 30% from a dismal 2.7% at the beginning of the sector opening.
The news has also been a shock not in that it was not expected but the urgency that has been conveyed in the press release for this to happen. Earlier, when Millicom and Arfeen split apart, exchanging their respective shares of both Paktel and Instaphone, the common wisdom was that Millicom, taking away the Paktel GSM brand with them and loading Arfeen International with the older TDMA leg of the joint Paktel-Instaphone operations will come out strong both as a brand as well as a service. However, less than a month after the official closure of 0303 Paktel TDMA services, this news of total Paktel closure has shocked all.
Insiders are reporting that the management of the Paktel has advised the employees to look for alternate jobs and that they shall facilitate the same. For a nationwide telecomm operator of the size of Paktel, that is a lot of telecom employees suddenly on the job search for the Pakistani market size.
The shake-out/consolidation phase that typically occurs in all liberalized markets initially is now appearing up. If Paktel decides to abruptly close down its services - something that seems unthinkable given over a million users using or having subscribed to the service - there would be lots of legal implications - floating liabilities being just one of them. On the other hand, if a graceful exit is being planned (which insiders insist is not the case given the signals that the management is not ready to bear even the opex) some probabilities could be plausible. Mobilink or Warid both could acquire the million odd customers of Paktel in a commercial contract. Whether or not these parties would be interested in acquiring the physical infrastructure of the outgoing brand is anybody’s guess. How does such an abrupt closure of the service is taken by PTA - the supposed lapdog watchdog of the telecommunication sector will also be an interesting watch.
PTA has issued Determination on 5th October 2006 on Bandwidth Tariffs offered by PTCL. You can grab your copy of the determination (53 pages, ~1 MB) from here. PTA’s website has a nice summary of the same here.
This determination is the conclusive part of the industry consultation process that PTA started in early September 2006.
Juice:
What to Expect:
DIDX - DID Exchange from Super Technologies- with Rehan Ahmed Allahwala from Karachi (yes he travels a lot but is based in Karachi) as one of its main drivers bags one of the forty three companies that received the Internet Telephony Excellence Award for 2006. The award is organized by TMC, a galaxy of communication related print and on-line publications.
Other companies that bagged the award included Alcatel, Inter-Tel, Inc., Juniper Networks, Netcentrex, Overture Networks, Samsung, Toshiba and Verizon.
Super Technologies have managed to remain ahead of the technological curve specially when compared to local companies. As early as in 1995, the company that was later to become Super Technologies was offering Faxaway services (international fax over email) to the local market. At that time, international calls cost you an arm and a leg and email was still a novelty. From Faxaway to DIDX, the company rolled as many services as the number of alphabets in English. Some of which that I can remember off the hand include Internet telephone line where the users used to get a US number for their soft or hard IP phones, call center solutions, IP PBX etc.
DIDX works on the novel concepts of useless-for-me-but-gem-for-others concept of sharing and exchanging DID (Direct Inward Dialing) numbers between Telecos of the world. Each Telco that operates anywhere in the world has access or ownership of the local E.164 telephone numbers. Using DIDX services, and the magic of VoIP protocols, Telcos can offer their cheap DID resources to others and gain DID resources on other networks for their customers use.
DIDX assumes cheap, resilient Internet available everywhere where its services are used - a situation that cannot be taken for granted in contemporary regulatory environment of Pakistan. However, despite the fact, DIDX is picking up in Pakistan. A number of Telcos are opting for DIDX services and offering a myriad of telephone numbers atop their local loop services in Pakistan.
PTA is holding a meeting with stakeholders on the topic of Bandwidth Charges Reduction tomorrow evening at its Head Quarters in Islamabad.
Input from the industry on this issue is now available from the PTA site (here).
PTA is telling us that their new initiative to curb cell phone crime will be active from 30th September 2006.
Chairman PTA said that the mobile operators have already been directed to install Equipment Identity Register (EIR) system which enables a stolen or snatched cell phone to be blocked through its International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) which is a unique number of every cell phone in the world. The Chairman said that once this system starts functioning, the magnitude of this menace will be decreased significantly.
Given the extent of the problem, the media is also building high expectation of this announcement which needs some scrutiny. The effort relies on two concepts:
International Mobile Equipment Identity or IMEI for short is supposed to be unique on each of the GSM phone in the world. However, as it turns out, IMEI can be forged. Given the expertise of the local cell phone market wizards, the EIR set up is going to be of little use.
An old entry of Setp 2004 of ITU Daily, an article titled ‘Crime Prevention for Mobile Networks’ makes interesting reading. While noting that SIM cards are hard to replicate (i.e. reproduced illegally) because of the advanced encryption algorithms employed in the formation of SIM, IMEIs can be re-programmed and forged easily.
When an attempt is made to connect a stolen phone to any network, the IMEI can be interrogated and, if the operator is connected to the CEIR, it will register as stolen and the handset barred from making or receiving any calls. However, a major weakness of this approach has been the fact that some IMEIs are are neither unique nor as secure as they could be.
BBC’s news archive of 2002 record comments from all top cellular companies (BT, Vodafone, Organe, Virgin Mobile etc) confirming that we should not bind high expectations from the EIR (or the CEIR as it is called elsewhere) set up. The BT-Cell rep says “New IMEIs can be programmed into stolen handsets and 10% of IMEIs are not unique.”
Because of the way the IMEI is stored on cell phones (permanent vs writable memory space), phones may or may not be reprogrammed to change their original IMEI. Bad news: Most of the models from Nokia (most popular brand in Pakistan) can be re-programmed.
Nokia phones that can be unlocked: 1100, 1101, 1110, 1600, 2100, 2300, 2600, 2650, 2652, 3100, 3120, 3200, 3220, 3210, 3230, 3300, 3310, 3330, 3410, 3510, 3510i, 3650, 3660, 5100, 5110, 5130, 5140, 5146, 5210, 5510, 6020, 6021, 6030, 6100, 6101, 6110, 6111, 6130, 6150, 6170, 6210, 6220, 6230, 6230i, 6250, 6260, 6310, 6310i, 6510, 6600, 6610, 6610i, 6650, 6670, 6800, 6810, 6820, 6822, 7110, 7200, 7210, 7250, 7250i, 7260, 7270, 7280 7600, 7610, 7650, 7700, 7710, 8210, 8310, 8800, 8810, 8850, 8890, 8910, 8910i, 9110, 9110i, 9210, 9210i, 9300, 9300i, 9500, and N-Gage, N-Gage QD
Someone please show PTA the worldwide marketplace of GSM Phones Programming and Reverse Engineering.
