Telenor Wins Two PAS Awards in Two Different Categories

Telenor has outshined in Pakistan Advertisers Society (PAS) Awards – country’s premiere advertising awards – by winning two titles in two different categories.

Wateen and Nokia also bagged PAS Awards in their respective categories tonight.

Telenor’s Khamoshi Ka Boycott ad by ADCOM won the best ad award for “Telecommunication Service Provider” category.

Other shortlisted ads in this category were by Ufone namely “Ufone Mobile Internet” and “49 Paisa Offer” – both by Interflow.

Zong and Mobilink’s creative advertisement agencies had submitted their entries but failed to make it to final round.

There were total of 14 submissions for “Telecommunication Service Provider” category, out of which three ads were shortlisted for final round.

Telenor’s “Easy Paisa Mobile Account” by ADCOM also won the award for “Banking and Financial Services” category – beating HBL for their ads “Sila Mila” by Think Tank Advertising and “Shanakht Cricketers” by JWT.

Nokia’s “Nokia dual SIM plus” ad by JWT won PAS award for “Telecommunication Hardware Manufacturer” category. Nokia’s ad was only submission in the category and hence had no competition.

Wateen’s “Jo Chaho” ad by Adetude won the title for “Computer and Internet” Category.

Competition for Computer and Internet category was immense, as entries of three well-known broadband operators were shortlisted along with their agencies.

Other shortlisted ads were from wi-tribe for “Wi-tribe Pakistan Brand refresh” and “Live in your world connect in ours” ad by Pirana Advertising for Qubee.

Rs. 17 Billion Allocated for Broadband Development in Pakistan

Yousaf Raza Gilani, Prime Minister of Pakistan, has announced that government of Pakistan has plans to allocate PKR 17 billion (USD 190 million) in next year’s budget for stretching the broadband services in un-served and under-served areas of the country.

It is anticipated that this money will be taken from USF’s pocket, which was specifically created for the development of telecom, broadband and ICT in far flung areas of the country where doing business isn’t viable otherwise.

Mr. Gillani revealed that his government had already spent Rs. 22 billion on IT, without mentioning that this amount was disbursed in five years, and that too by Universal Service Fund (not by his government) that is funded from 1.5 percent yearly revenues of all telecom companies.

It is said that PKR 62 billion is lying in USF’s account (that is bound to increase in July 2012 – as the end of fiscal year nears) which the government has plans to disburse on development projects to get the credit in upcoming elections.

Regardless of the goals Mr. Gillani has in mind, if spent well, this PKR 17 billion grant can change the course of internet reach in Pakistan in one year. Internet Service Providers are eagerly waiting for new bids to work on with USF.

Zong Offers Truly Unlimited Mobile Internet

Zong, after rocking the market with all sorts of mobile internet packages, has once again set a new standard by introducing truly unlimited mobile internet – that is: without any data limits on downloads/uploads at all.

This truly unlimited mobile internet comes at a daily subscription charge of Rs. 10 (including taxes) per day.

This new package will replace old daily mobile internet package of Zong with no download limits – which was earlier capped at 50 MB per day.

Also, with this new daily internet package, Zong customers of monthly mobile internet package will revert to daily mobile internet package – with which they can enjoy the daily charging instead of paying Rs. 200 in advance for whole month.

Though, paying Rs. 10 per day will translate into Rs. 300 per month – but you will get truly unlimited mobile internet, plus daily subscription model, instead of monthly subscription – which would be useful for majority of Zong subscribers.

Daily Unlimited Mobile Internet:

• Unlimited Mobile Internet
• Daily Charges: Rs. 10 (auto re-subscription)
• Activation Charges: Rs. 10 (One time activation)
• Subscription: dial *909#
• Un-subscribe by sending an SMS: unsubunlimited” to 909
• Un-subscription charges: Rs. 5

Note

• This package is available to all Prepaid Zong customers on all commercial packages.
• The package is truly Unlimited with no usage caps.
• Limited Time offer.

Update:

Daily Plus – loyalty program which offers one day of unlimited browsing without any additional fee after three consecutive days is for Daily Mobile Internet (Rs. 5/day) subscribers only– and is not offered with Zong Daily Unlimited mobile internet package.

That’s not it, if you use Daily Unlimited Mobile Internet for three consecutive days, you will get fourth day for free as  Bonus.

Activation of the loyalty program is automatic; meaning that you just have to use the package for three days consecutively – to automatically get fourth day for free.

This bonus comes with no extra subscription charges. Just the daily subscription charges for the day.

• This package is available to all Prepaid Zong customers on all commercial packages.
• The customer will be eligible for unlimited browsing after successful charging of fourth day.
• Unlimited browsing starts after 5:00am on the fourth day and ends at 11:5

Jawbone Up – A Smart New Product

Jawbone a company which is known for its Bluetooth headsets has designed a product that is going to help you move, exercise, sleep and eat better.

Up is a groovy new gadget that makes your life easier when it comes to organizing the most essential of activities.

Imagine having a device that helps you know how much you have slept, what you ate, how much you exercised in a day and if it is time for you to move from your work desk and move around because you have been idle for some time.

Imagine having a device wrapped around your wrist that assists you in keeping a check on all of these essential activities, Jawbone’s Up helps you exactly do that.

What is UP?

Up is a wearable device that has the ability to track the users sleeping, eating and exercise habits. The wristband has to be used with an Apple I-Phone and currently no other platform is supported by the device. The device comes with a free application that can be loaded on to your apple I-Phone and helps you control the device, set reminders, track your exercise , monitor your sleep and food intake.

Why is UP so cool?

The device has some really cool abilities one of them is that it can actually determine whether you are in deep sleep or if you are just dozing. On the basis of this information the device then decides whether it should wake you up or not, an ability which an alarm clock aside not even a human can replicate. Additionally the device is water proof up to 1 meter and the company is promising a battery life of up to 10 days.

The Design

While looking at the band you will observe that the band is relatively thin and considering the fact that consumers will be wearing this all around and everywhere it looks sturdy enough to handle all the activity.

One end of the band is topped off with a metal piece or a button that needs to be pressed every time the user wants to let the band know he/she is going to sleep, getting out of bed or beginning / ending a workout. The band has a vibration motor inside and also an LED light that flashes different colors.

On the opposite side there is a metal cap covering a 3.5mm headphone connector which can be used to sync the band with the iDevice in addition the connector is also used to recharge via your computer’s USB port. In order to do that the band comes with a USB adapter that can fit on top of the headphone connector and then can be inserted into the computer for recharging.

The UP I-Phone Application

One of the drawbacks of the device is that it does not sync wirelessly with your phone, in fact the user has to sync the device manually by organizing his/her goals and objectives on the iOS application provided with the device. Once that has been done the user will have to sync the device with the phone thus transferring all the data onto the wristband.

In order to retrieve daily progress from the device the user will have to sync the device back. The application is fairly simple as it organizes your data by day in accordance with the three categories: sleep, activity and food intake the device is designed to monitor. Once the application is launched users at first see’s a bar graph for the current day called the “Me screen”.

The screen features three color coded vertical bars arranged side by side which represent the hours the user slept, the number of steps the user took and the energizing meals the users have consumed. The bottom of the chart, also displays some basic stats related to all these three categories.

Price and Availability:

For roughly Rs. 9000 ($ 99) the device is a cool gadget to have, the upcoming versions of the device will have the ability to sync wirelessly with the users phone which will be a massive add one for the device and the users. Additionally it would be a huge benefit if the device would be made compatible with other platforms like Android.

This gadget isn’t available in Pakistan as of now. But we hope that suppliers will bring it here soon.

More details on Up are here: http://jawbone.com/up/product

Samsung Galaxy S3 to Hit Stores Next Week at PKR 62,000

Samsung has announced that it’s flagship device, Samsung Galaxy S III will be available in Pakistan on May 31st, 2012.

Like we anticipated, Samsung has said that price for Galaxy S3 will be PKR. 62,000.

Samsung Galaxy S III, the next big thing from Samsung, which is said to have broken all previous records for pre-orders, was unveiled earlier this month.

Samsung, in a statement, said it has made all arrangements necessary to start shipping for Galaxy S3 in Pakistan on May 31st, that’s along with global launch for the device. Samsung Galaxy S3 will be available on Teletec stores, countrywide.

Samsung Galaxy S III comes with 4.8 inch Super AMOLED HD screen (1280 x 720) on a minimal design with Samsung’s conventional plastic pack. On hardware front, Galaxy S III is equipped with 1.4GHz Samsung Exynos 4 Quad processor.

Samsung Galaxy S3 2ill be powered by Android 4.0.4 or Ice Cream Sandwich at the time of shipment next week.

Here is a rundown of Galaxy S3’s Specifications:

Specifications:

Here is a run down of complete specifications for Galaxy S3:

• Network:
  • 2.5G (GSM/ GPRS/ EDGE): 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz
  • 3G (HSPA＋ 21Mbps): 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100 MHz
  • 4G (Dependent on market)
• Display: 4.8 inch HD Super AMOLED (1280×720) display
• OS: Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)
• Camera
  • Main(Rear): 8 Mega pixel Auto Focus camera with Flash & Zero Shutter Lag
  • Sub (Front): 1.9 Mega pixel camera, HD recording @30fps with Zero Shutter Lag
  • Recording & Playback: Full HD (1080p)
• Connectivity:
  • WiFi a/b/g/n, WiFi HT40
  • GPS/GLONASS
  • NFC
  • Bluetooth® 4.0(LE)
• Sensor: Accelerometer, RGB light, Digital compass, Proximity, Gyro, Barometer
• Memory: 16/ 32GB User memory (64GB available soon) ＋ microSD slot (up to 64GB)
• Dimension: 136.6 x 70.6 x 8.6 mm, 133g
• Battery: 2,100 mAh

Does This 3G Ad (for Afghanistan) Hurt you?

This above ad is being advertised on Google network by Etisalat Afghanistan for its newly launched 3G services. You call it bad strategy that it is appearing in Pakistan (on websites with adsense enabled, such as here on ProPakistani) but it could be a purposeful and planned act by Etisalat to enhance the image of its telecom arm in Afghanistan.

Whatever the reasons are behind displaying this ad in Pakistan, but it might not look that pleasant to Pakistani audience, who are deprived of 3G just because operators don’t find 3G viable enough.

Just in case in you aren’t familiar, Afghanistan has got its first 3G network through Etisalat. This is exactly what the above ad is advertising about: “High-Speed Internet has Arrived”.

ARPU (Average Revenue Per User), economic situation, inflation, law and order situation, internet adaptability, smartphone penetration and all other concerning factors in Afghanistan are seemingly not any better than Pakistan.

In such a situation, how does this AD feel like to you? when Afghanistan has a 3G network while it still seems like a distant dream here in Pakistan.

You can share your thoughts in below comments.

High Court Dismisses PTCL’s Appeal Against PTA Order

The long-standing court case between PTCL and Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has finally been decided by the Islamabad High Court in favor of PTA, said a statement issued by authority.

In this decision, Islamabad High Court has dismissed PTCL appeal regarding dispute concerning origination charges on “Non prepaid calling card service” and upheld PTA’s decision of 21^st August 2006.

It is clarified that Long Distance and International (LDI) operators are dependent on PTCL’s network for connectivity and therefore, are required to pay origination charges to PTCL for providing prepaid calling card services.

The dispute between PTCL and LDI operators arose when PTCL started charging LDI operators for unsuccessful calls as well, thus making businesses of LDIs unviable.

PTCL took the view that since the calls have been responded by Interactive Voice Response (IVR) using PTCL’s resources, therefore the duration used for IVR should be considered as a successful call. LDI operators were of the view that the terms and conditions given in Reference Interconnection Offer (RIO) of PTCL do not address the said issue in such manner and they should not be charged for that service for which they cannot charge their subscribers. Moreover, they also argued that PTCL was not charging pre-call connection duration used for IVR from its O&M partners, therefore, it is a clear discrimination.

PTA, being the telecom regulator, took up the issue with LDI operators and PTCL. In this regard, detailed consultations, meetings and deliberations were held with the industry.

International references were also studied by PTA and detailed calculations were made in order to assess and verify claim of both parties. Finally PTA gave determination on 21^stAugust, 2006 that PTCL shall charge origination charges from LDI operators for both ‘Revenue Time’ and ‘Non-Revenue Time’ on calling card traffic after giving 25% discount being a win-win situation for all parties. However, the Determination was challenged by PTCL in the court of law.

The Honorable Islamabad High Court after hearing detailed arguments from PTA and PTCL has now dismissed PTCL’s appeal and upheld PTA’s Determination by stating that the Determination made by PTA fully reflects all material aspects of the issue, not considered but recorded as well, and the reasoning advanced by PTA is not only cogent but plausible.

This landmark decision by the honorable court will help to build further confidence of industry and general public regarding the fair and transparent decision making process of PTA.

This will also help to revive the business of prepaid calling card which declined during the past few years owning to various factors including this dispute between PTCL and LDI operators. As a result of this decision, the LDI operators will be able to settle their long outstanding dues as well as resume prepaid calling card service for the benefit of general public.