On 18^th April 2010, a successful raid was carried out by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority in Green West Karachi with the help of Federal Investigation Agency Cyber Crime Wing. The raid resulted in confiscation of one functional Gateway Exchange with over hundred SIMs and other accessories. Two individuals have also been arrested from the location, who are being interrogated by FIA.

In last one year, PTA has conducted twenty seven (27) successful raids in different cities of Pakistan. During these raids forty five (45) culprits including some foreigners have been arrested along with confiscation of more than forty (40) Gateways, hundreds of SIMs/Connections and other accessories. The apprehended culprits are being interrogated by FIA and legal proceedings are underway to recover the millions of rupees loss to the national exchequer.

Chairman PTA, Dr. Mohammed Yaseen keen interest has helped enormously in achieving these results. PTA under his leadership has established highly advance technical monitoring system to identify such illegal activities throughout Pakistan. After identification of the illegal activity; Enforcement Division not only unearths the exact location of these networks but also launches crack down with the help of FIA to safeguard national interests.

Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd (PTCL) has upgraded and advanced its contact centers to facilitate its customers. Now PTCL customers can utilize its services through these contact centers with out leaving their homes or offices.

PTCL has four contact centers one each in Karachi and Rawalpindi and two in Lahore. These contact centers operates round the clock 24/7, 365 days a year. A well trained staff of 1200 personnel ensures quality service and support to our customers at all times.

These contact centers has been upgraded from a previously man-power reliant contact centers and now has taken the shape of advanced and developed process-oriented contact centers. They are equipped with state-of-the-art technology and parameters in place together with efficient and effective provision on the first call resolution.

SEVP Commercial Naveed Saeed remarked that these steps were an effort to ensure that all the customers both in-bound and out-bound, needs were dealt with speedily and effectively. He added that customer facilitation has always been the core objective of PTCL policies and programs.

Besides this, PTCL has also developed an effective online interface through which customers can order majority of products along with the facility of submitting their suggestions and feedback regarding services of PTCL. The web portal will enable customers to manage their accounts and billing as per convenience of their time and location. PTCL is also providing an online complaint form for their customers to register their complaints using web based services.

To improve customer care in the regions, PTCL has also established service support centers through out the country. They serve as a platform for communication with customers, analysis and follow-ups on faults and service provisioning regarding all PTCL services. They have also been engaged in coordination with local exchanges for expediting customer services issues.

EVP Customer Care Jamil Khawaja said ensuring effective customer care is the top priority of PTCL and all steps would be taken to simplify the procedures for our customers to eradicate any hurdles coming in way.

Commenting on media reports attributed to the Government of Pakistan’s Federal Minister of Privatisation: Senator Waqar Ahmed Khan, The Chairman and Managing Director of Emirates Telecommunication Corporation – Etisalat: Mr Mohammad Omran recalled that Etisalat’s investment in PTCL came in the wake of a welcome invitation and encouragement by the Government of Pakistan to participate in the privatization process, which the Corporation was pleased to accept given the special and brotherly relations between the UAE and Pakistan. He said that in addition to financial valuation and other formal commercial considerations, the governance and strict procurement rules of Etisalat (the Corporation being a listed entity in the UAE, 60% of which is owned by the Federal Government of UAE) required that before approving an acquisition of an asset, its Board of Directors obtained a legal opinion from International and country National external counsel which confirmed in no ambiguous terms that the requisite steps for the sale of that asset had been followed and that the acquisition is legally valid under the laws of the relevant country.

He stressed that as a UAE public corporation and one of the largest listed entities in the country in addition to its status as a leading regional Telecom operator, Etisalat applies the highest standards of transparency in conducting its business operations and International expansion strategy and a mission to add value wherever its reach took it.

Alluding to the above press reports, Mr Omran pointed out that the commercial agreements with the Government of Pakistan call for the transfer of the properties in question to PTCL and not to Etisalat. Mr Omran added that when the properties are transferred to PTCL, the Government of Pakistan, being the 62% shareholder of PTCL, will be the single largest beneficiary.

Referring to the withholding of instalment payments, the Chairman and Managing Director of Etisalat added that under the agreed terms of the transaction, Etisalat is entitled to withhold payments until the property titles were transferred to PTCL. “Our aim is to ensure that PTCL receives clean title to and possession of all properties,” said Mr. Omran. He added, “We are confident that when the Privatisation Commission fulfils this obligation, Etisalat will immediately release the instalments.”

Warid Telecom (Pvt.) Ltd. country’s most popular cellular service introduces another exciting service that allows Warid customers to send and receive International MMS. Initially this service is offered in China, Thailand, Australia, UAE and Saudi Arabia and the list of destinations is rapidly increasing. Both prepaid and postpaid customers can use this service. The maximum size of the International MMS is 100kb with the tariff of Rs. 10 + tax per MMS while the tariff to receive an international MMS is just Rs. 3 + tax or as per the customer’s GPRS package plan. Warid International Roaming has many other innovative products such as SMS Roaming, Safe Arrival SMS, WiFi Roaming, In-Flight Roaming and Maritime Roaming which allow customers to stay connected to home, whether they travel by sea, air or land. Warid offers international roaming with 237 live GSM roaming partners in 143 countries also collaborating with 130 live GPRS roaming partners in 94 countries. Not only this, but the mesh of prepaid roaming service has now been extended within 28 countries, covering about 70% of the world including Europe, Africa, Middle East and Asia. Warid continues to stand out with plenty of tailored services and solutions allowing Warid subscribers to stay connected with their loved ones anywhere in the world.

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) will encourage and facilitate Local Content Providers to participate in the ICT based economy growth in the country.

In view of the importance of local contents and applications for future promotion of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) industry and infrastructure, PTA in collaboration with Motorola organized an exclusive conference on “Promoting ICT Sector” here, today. Secretary IT & Telecom, Naguibullah Malik, Chairman PTA, Dr. Mohammed Yaseen, Member (Finance) PTA, Syed Nasrul Karim Ghaznavi, Member (Technical) PTA, Dr. Khawar Siddique Khokhar, leading representatives from IT & telecommunication sector and renowned academic & research scholars attended the conference.

Through this conference, a unique platform was provided to potential content providers to present their applications and ideas linked with ICT usage and development. Nine (9) local content providers displayed their applications during the conference which were highly appreciated by the ICT industry.  This conference was planned to spot the latest access technologies in the country and understand the challenges faced by telecom industry in terms of high cost of ownership and OPEX.

Addressing the conference Secretary IT & Telecom said that for the promotion of ICT sector in Pakistan, there is an acute need of bringing consensus among the Government, IT Industry, Telcos and academia to map out effective strategies for the best utilization of available opportunities in this sector. In this regard, he appreciated this initiative of PTA for providing an important platform for some constructive dialogue and discussion.

Secretary IT drew attention of the participants to four main focus areas which could give a boost to the development of ICT sector. Those areas include IT & Telecom education, research, entrepreneurship and local industries. He said that to carry out productive work in these areas, support of an efficient policy is also mandatory, for which the Government is working extensively and soon this policy will be introduced to the industry.

Chairman PTA, Dr. Mohammed Yaseen said that the telecom sector of Pakistan has shown a rapid growth in the last few years. Especially the voice segment has been leading the other segments of telecommunication. Today, we have around 97.6 million cellular subscribers with total teledensity reaching upto 63.5%. However, the sector is still under-served as far as broadband is concerned.  He said that the key issue in further development of data segment is non-availability of local contents and applications which can contribute towards formulation of ICT-based economy.

He also highlighted the role of academia as a potential contributor of this sector. He said that a few educational institutes in Pakistan are already engaged in conducting useful research work but the contributory role of academia at large is, unfortunately, a ‘missing link’. At present, Pakistan’s telecom sector is in dire need of establishing strong academia linkage with industry and government to accelerate future technical excellence and entrepreneurship. He said that we need to encourage the participation of all stakeholders in this effort so that the issues, problems and barriers faced by the industry in the promotion of ICT sector may be highlighted and addressed properly hence the appropriate way outs to those problems can also be identified.

In reference to its endeavors for the development of ICTs in Pakistan, Dr. Yaseen said that PTA has taken number of initiatives to launch and promote new innovative solutions for the betterment of telecom industry and society and would continue its efforts till the set objectives are achieved completely. He invited all the stake holders to join their hands with PTA in order to bring about spectacular growth in the ICT sector as well as to enhance their own business in the market.

It may be mentioned that development of ICTs has become an important growth factor for countries around the globe. With every passing day, the world is edging into an information-based age. The rapid evolution of ICTs is clearly re-shaping daily lives, enhancing productivity and transforming the economies.

For the facilitation of general public and telecom users, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has launched the Urdu version of its official website on Internet. In this connection, an inaugural ceremony was held at PTA Headquarters, Islamabad. Advisor to the Prime Minister on IT, Sardar Muhammad Latif Khan Khosa formally inaugurated PTA website.  Chairman PTA, Dr. Mohammed Yaseen, Member (Finance) PTA, Syed Nasrul Karim Ghaznavi, Member (Technical) PTA, Dr. Khawar Siddique Khokhar were also present on the occasion.

This new Urdu version of PTA website would contain the same contents of the English version converted into simple Urdu language with similar layout and design. This step has been taken in view of providing online information to those internet users who are generally less-educated in web-surfing or less-familiar with English language. Now, they would also be able to enjoy the same facility and could access the online available information regarding PTA activities, decisions, policies, Consumer Protection regulation and Complaint Management System through a simple click.

The users would also be able to access various online services of PTA. PTA directly receives complaints of telecom consumers on different issues at its headquarters and Zonal offices as well as at its website. A special CMS (Content Management System) has also been developed for this website to integrate the new consumer complaint system with the telecommunication operators. The new complaint system would also provide a multilingual interface to the consumer both in English and Urdu. Under the link titled “shikayaat” the consumers could lodge their complaints by filling and submitting a simple online complaint form. Besides, SIM Information System 668, Blocking of Stolen handsets through IMEI number, Telecom Sector Indicators and other such services would also be available on Urdu version of PTA’s website..

Addressing the inaugural ceremony, Advisor on IT & Telecom, Sardar Muhammad Latif Khan Khosa appreciated PTA efforts for achieving remarkable progress in the telecommunication sector of Pakistan. He said that the Government is committed to enhance the quality of ICT sector. As we innovate in technologies and services on the Internet, Mobile and other segments of Telecommunication in our attempt to strengthen their outreach and accommodate the needs of the new user segments, it is vital to ensure that our exclusive regulatory and policy structure is preserved, maintained, and built upon. He emphasized that there is a strong connection between local language editions of website and penetration of Internet inside our society. He valued the efforts put in by PTA to execute its notion of facilitating the telecommunication consumer by introducing new platforms. He said that this new edition of PTA website would embark a new horizon of telecommunication information dissemination to the people of Pakistan. The Government will ensure continued encouragement and support in this regard, he added.

Chairman PTA briefed the Advisor to the Prime Minister on structure, scope and achievements made by PTA. He said that PTA believes that lack of local language content is one of the main hurdles behind the proliferation of Broadband Internet services in Pakistan. He said that we are collaborating with industry and academia to bridge this vital gap and offer local content and applications to people of Pakistan. The launch of Urdu version of PTA website is a major landmark in the Internet history of Pakistan where PTA has marked itself as the first-ever governmental organization to introduce full-content version of website in Urdu. This also demonstrates PTA’s effort to encourage local content in order to bring Internet nearer to the people.

It may be mentioned that Urdu version of PTA’s website is developed by using Unicode font’s standard. Unicode standard (UTF-8) comes up with an added advantage that there is no need to install Urdu fonts at the client side.

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has launched a special program for the promotion of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) Sector of Pakistan. In this connection, an inaugural ceremony was held at PTA Headquarters, Islamabad wherein Advisor to the Prime Minister on IT, Sardar Muhammad Latif Khan Khosa formally inaugurated the PTA program while Parliamentary Secretary Interior, Capt (R) Rai Ghulam Mujtaba Kharal, Secretary Cabinet Division, Mr.Abdul Rauf Chaudhry, Secretary IT & Telecom, Mr.Naguibullah Malik, Chairman PTA, Dr.Mohammed Yaseen, Member (Finance) PTA, Syed Nasrul Karim Ghaznavi, Member (Technical) PTA, Dr. Khawar Siddique Khokhar and representatives of IT & telecom industry were also present on the occasion.

Addressing the inaugural ceremony, Advisor on IT & Telecom, Sardar Muhammad Latif Khan Khosa said that the Government is committed to enhancing the quality of manpower in the ICT sector. He said that we will continue to provide the necessary support to industry and the academia. Following the global scenario of technological development and application promotions, ICT will play even more important role in human society. And to realize that, he said, we need the effort and close cooperation from all of us including operators, equipment manufacturers, content providers and academia. He appreciated the efforts of PTA towards proliferation of ICT sector of the country. He said that the massive growth of telecommunication services is an eye-opener and it is firmly believed that still there is room for expansion and growth. New ICT applications have generated new forms of consumption and attracted large number of consumers.

On this occasion, the Secretary IT & Telecom said that our ICT industry has already been transformed over the last decade. In response to transparent policy and regulatory apparatus, our market has observed liberalization, greater private sector participation and competition. He said that the IT & telecom sector is now a sector dominated by private players competing strategically on new technologies, pricing and customer services. The ICT has emerged as the most promising segment in Pakistan’s economy brining in substantial revenues and creating remarkable job opportunities for the country’s youth.  He said  that  today the Government is committed to support the ICT sector by taking required policy measures. We are in final phase of shaping the future policies for the whole ICT sector. This policy development program is quite open, incorporating a multi stakeholder deliberation. He said that we are targeting to create an environment for the promotion of required content and applications in order to enhance the productivity of our human resource. It is for this reason that we must work harder to ensure that forecasted policy milestones are achieved in a desired manner.  The Government will ensure continued encouragement and support in this regard, he added.

Talking on the event the Chairman PTA said that Pakistan has emerged as one of the leading markets in telecommunications especially in the voice segment. In broadband sector, by December 2008, we had approx 250,000 broadband subscribers and within a span of one year, by December 2009 the figure has just crossed 600,000 showing a massive annual growth rate of more than 200%. However, at the same time, we still are lagging behind in overall broadband penetration. 600,000 subscribers reflects a penetration level of only 0.36%. This is where we require a mutual collaboration for development of local applications and content to promote usage of broadband in all spheres of life. He said, operators are looking for future revenue streams which are very much dependent on availability of value added data services. Key issue in further development of data segment is non-availability of local content and applications which can contribute towards ICT-based economical contribution. That is why, today, the PTA’s main focus is on the development of local content and applications, he added.

Chairman PTA said that in reference to its endeavors for the development of ICTs in Pakistan, PTA has taken number of initiatives to launch and promote new innovative solutions for the betterment of telecom industry and society. As a part of such efforts PTA will now hold an exclusive conference on ‘Promoting ICT Sector’ on February 25, 2010 (Thursday). This conference is being organized in view of the importance of local content and applications for future promotion of ICT industry and infrastructure.

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has issued Show Cause Notice to initiate proceedings against M/s PTCL on showing poor quality of service, based on the results of the joint Quality of Service (QoS) Survey conducted recently by PTA. PTA has given 30 days time to PTCL to submit the reply. Based on the outcome PTA, under the Telecom Act, reserves the right to proceed legally.

The QoS surveys is a regular activity of PTA and the objective is to ensure that the interests of the consumers of telecommunication services are duly safeguarded and that the licensees are providing the telecom services as per the service quality standards of the license.

PTA, from time to time, has been repeatedly informing PTCL about its poor QoS and PTCL was directed to improve the quality as per license conditions, however, no improvement made therein despite ample time provided to PTCL.  As a result, show cause notice has been served to initiate the proceedings against the licensee as per rules.

According to the details, survey was conducted across Pakistan including major and small cities and rural areas from August to October 2009 along with the PTCL representatives on a mutually agreed survey methodology. It may be mentioned that this is the first instance of PTCL being show caused on account of poor quality of service which clearly shows the PTA’s resolve for not compromising on sub-standard services to the telecom consumers.

Chairman PTA, Dr. Mohammed Yaseen said that ensuring quality services to consumers has always been priority to PTA. This is evident from the continuous surveys conducted by PTA for both mobile and fixed line sectors. The recent establishment of Consumer Protection Directorate, providing fast and easy complaint registration mechanism is another major step in protecting and safeguarding consumer interests.

A recently concluded report of IPv6 Monitory Group, formulated by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) in view of the future forecast and usage of IP (Internet Protocol), has estimated that complete depletion of IPv4 addresses would take place somewhere in mid 2014.

PTA has formulated this group to determine estimated depletion timeline of IPv4 and suggest necessary Policy and Regulatory areas to promote IPv6 adoption. The report provides a detail insight of global IP addressing mechanism and statistics. It also presents brief benefits attached with this next generation version of IP (i.e. IPv6).

The report says that by the end of year 2009, 1.7 million IPv4 addresses were allocated to the Pakistani industry while eight IP service providers were assigned IPv6 address blocks by Asian-pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC).

The report also envisions necessary role of the Government and the Regulator with regards to IPv6 transition mechanism inside the country. Presenting its recommendations, the report emphasizes on increasing IPv6 awareness and capacity building, providing necessary industrial incentives to IPv6 adopters, establishment of research labs through Government funding and devising a ‘National IPv6 Roadmap. This report has been published at PTA website.

It may be mentioned here that Internet Protocol has emerged as the most popular communication protocol in today’s world. With the original scope of delivering Data packets, IP has evolved tremendously over the period and is now being utilized to offer “triple play bundled” services by telecommunication operators. With the advent of new enriched applications and services, a rapid adoption of IP-based platforms (especially the Internet) is being observed. The situation is resulting in massive allocation of IPv4 (the present version of Internet Protocol) addresses.

Global IP allocation data estimates an IPv4 exhaustion point some-where in mid 2012. In view of growing importance of Internet Protocol for smooth presence of global communication, many countries have started necessary work on transition of IPv6.

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has awarded gold medals with cash prizes to 12 students of various distinguished educational institutes of the country for the best research projects on IT & telecom for the year 2009. Secretary Cabinet Division, Abdul Rauf Chaudhry presented gold medals to the winners of the competition during a ceremony held at PTA Headquarters, Islamabad today. Chairman PTA, Dr. Mohammed Yaseen, Member (Finance) PTA, Syed Nasrul Karim Ghaznavi, Member (Technical) PTA, Dr. Khawar Siddique Khokhar were also present on the occasion. The event was attended by faculty members of the universities, parents of the awardees and representatives of the industry.

These gold medals have been awarded on the basis of a competition among accredited national universities called by PTA in April 2009 for the best research projects on IT & telecom. Various educational institutes responded to this call and nominated their students for the competition. Total 18 research projects were received from different universities which were later on scrutinized and evaluated by a PTA committee through a transparent procedure of marking. On the basis of highest obtained marks four research projects were selected for the award of Rs.50,000/- each and gold medals for the 12 participants of these projects.

Addressing the ceremony, Secretary Cabinet Division said that PTA has taken this initiative proactively which should be appreciated and followed by the whole telecom industry especially by the operators to take maximum advantage from the research work of these young scholars. While appreciating the winners of the competition he assured of the effective utilization of these projects in the decision making processes. He said that this scheme would go a long way in developing a strong relationship between the Academia, Industry and the relevant government organizations and would turn out to be exemplary for the rest of the sectors of our economy.

In his welcoming address, Chairman PTA said that as reflected from the telecom indicators, growth in the telecom sector has been immense in recent past years. Similarly education sector has also shown tremendous growth in terms of adding an increased number of educational and professional institutions, development of faculty and students’ enrolments whereas growth in research on IT & telecom in Pakistan has not been proportionate. Therefore, he said, intense local research activities are need of the hour to sustain previous growth patterns. This step can be helpful in creating a strong industry-academia linkage which would enable us to understand the views of researchers regarding pertinent issues faced by the industry. He said that we can evaluate the practicability and level of implementation of these research projects at our levels and can bring improvements which could help us in achieving our goals.

Chairman said that PTA introduced the Industry Academia Linkage in 2008 to fill the gap between sector development and research requirements of the industry. Gold medals to first batch of students were awarded by the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Syed Yousuf Raza Gillani on World Telecom & Information Society Day, May 17, 2008. He said that this is the second batch of students receiving these awards. The prime objective of these awards is to encourage academia’s participation in the development of telecom sector through their research work, he added.

Dr. Yaseen appreciated the efforts of the winners of the awards and their supervisors who supported them in achieving this distinguished honour. He said that we would look forward to continued contribution of educational institutions in future as their research works can lead to the exploration of new frontiers in the telecom sector. He said that PTA assures its full cooperation in this regard and would welcome the participation of other industry stakeholders to make this industry-academia linkage stronger.