Under the USD 11.3 million multi-transponder agreement, Wateen will provide Spacecom with Ku-band and C-band satellite bandwidth for Pakistan, as well as the Asian region served by the Asian broadcasting satellites ABS-7 and Intelsat IS-904. The C-band is a name given to certain portions of the electromagnetic spectrum, including wavelengths of microwaves that are used for long-distance radio telecommunications.
The C-band is primarily used for open satellite communications, whether for full-time satellite TV networks or raw satellite feeds. Ku band is primarily used for fixed and broadcast services over satellite. Ku band satellites are used for backhauls and particularly for satellite from remote locations back to a television network’s studio for editing and broadcasting.
The agreement brings great value to Wateen as it will enable the telecoms giant to provide a variety of telecommunications services, including GSM backhauling, high-speed Internet, news gathering, disaster recovery and data connectivity to regions where no other connectivity media is available.
Wateen Telecom is Pakistan’s largest satellite bandwidth reseller and a satellite systems integrator of world-renowned equipment manufacturers such as Comtech EF Data, STM Networks, I-Direct, Vertix and Cisco. Wateen’s satellite services division provides end-to-end solutions for VSAT equipment, satellite bandwidth, network optimization and customization tools to all of the country’s leading telecom operators, financial institutions, media broadcasting companies and SMEs.
Arrangements are being made by Wateen to get the maximum level of coverage all over Pakistan and its neighboring countries to empowers GSM operators , financial institutes , media broadcasting companies and other SME’s for their daily operations. Agreements contain leasing of Ku and C-band transponders with both fixed and steerable beams.
Commenting on the new venture, Wateen CEO Naeem Zamindar said, “We are excited about offering end-to-end connectivity to customers who rely on satellite technology for uninterrupted, high-quality service in areas where the terrain may prevent deployment of a fiber optic network. We found Spacecom to be best suited for our region as it offers the capabilities to meet the ever-evolving needs of a market with space capacity limitations.”
Company is calling it new corporate identity, i.e. new logo, revamped website (though its not up as of now), new packages, new customer support, new sales network, new everything and most importantly the new spirit brought in by the new management.
Mr. Naeem Zamindar, CEO, Wateen and Syed Jibran Ali, Chief Commercial Officer, Wateen were there to brief the press that was followed by extensive question/answer session. Mr. Sohaib Sheikh, head of Marketing was also on stage to participate in the session.
Mr. Zamindar and other officials were clearly emphasizing the new identity of Wateen to essentially make everyone realize that this company today is not what we were previously familiar with.
These promised of new Wateen were coupled with confessions of loopholes and financial crisis that the company has gone through over the years. Claims were backed by some major announcements that we will discuss after the break.
Meanwhile have a look at Wateen’s new TVC
So getting back to those announcements, which I believe are crucial as this was probably the last chance that Wateen may get in it’s life to deliver.
We have heard of Wateen’s possible merger with Warid, but that’s something based on preliminary information that we get from sources and may require plenty of time to get through because of legal procedures involved.
But for time being we can confirm that Wateen will use Warid’s sales and service centers, franchises and retailors’ network to boost sales.
“This is not an exclusive deal”, told me Mr. Zamindar saying that they are ready to partner with any potential partner to attain mutual benefits. His point was that they are primarily aiming to stretch the reach to make it easier for the customers to get and maintain their Wateen broadband connections.
I did ask him about the possible merger, which he obviously denied.
On a side note, I know through sources that Warid people are already training the staff for Wateen devices and tariffs to start selling the connections.
Wateen has also partnered with Easypaisa to enable it’s customers to pay their monthly bills through Easypaisa.
Wateen said that they have 50 franchises and 2500 dealers countrywide for sales, after sales support and billing services. This is in addition to Warid service centers and franchises that will start offering Wateen WiMAX services soon.
Syed Jibran, CCO Wateen, was particularly enthusiastic about customer support department, which according to him has been bettered a lot. He unveiled that this is another area where Warid helped Wateen to straighten things.
He in fact bravely asked the press to call helpline tomorrow to see how much they have upped the standards there.
Like we told you earlier, Wateen has optimized it’s network by transferring resources from less-users areas to populous regions. This way company will be able to put it’s effort on high ARPU cities only, while eliminating the coverage from those destinations where return was low.
According to a source in company, Wateen deployed 240 new sites plus transferred another 100 to populous places.
Wateen, as we know, has partnered with GreenPacket to get it’s classy devices that offer better performance than usual dongles. Wateen officials admitted that their earlier choice of dongle wasn’t wise as they didn’t offer solid signals, especially in highly populated city areas.
In addition of GreenPacket, Wateen has plans to get WiMAX devices (CPEs) from GemTek and NSN.
CEO Wateen noted that company is taking necessary measures to make local manufacturing of CPEs possible, but no timeline was mentioned for this.
Wateen won’t let it’s telephony and TV services go. CEO said that they have plans to target SMEs with their voice services to offer them choice over conventional options.
Wateen said that it will target those home users with extremely low priced international bundles as well.
CEO Wateen announced that company has partnered with Higher Education Commission to connect all universities of Pakistan, regardless of their location, with back haul fiber optic cable.
He explained that this will open new opportunities for academia, that will be enabled with tele-conferences, long distance education, course sharing and what not. Moreover, this opportunities will open the door for local universities to collaborate with international universities at many levels.
Naeem Zamindar unveiled that Wateen has deployed the infrastructure to offer cloud services to local market, however, they haven’t marketed it yet. They have plans to target government, large sized businesses and SMEs with cloud solutions.
WiMAX Packages:
We couldn’t explore packages as they were supposed to get announced by the website, which isn’t live as of filing of this report. We will probably do a separate post with tariffs for new packages in the morning.
Conclusion:Overall the re-launch looked promising with plenty of enthusiasm, claims and promises. However, delivery of service is what Wateen has repeatedly failed at. So only time will tell the future of Wateen based on it’s the execution plan.
Here’s official press release for the re-launch:
Lahore, 1st November, 2011: Wateen Telecom, Pakistan’s leading converged communication services provider is proud to announce its new corporate identity in line with the vision laid out by its new management team.On the occasion, Mr. Naeem Zamindar, CEO Wateen Telecom, stated that “The new Wateen is focused on enabling its customers’ lives and business by being the most reliable, responsive and innovative broadband solutions provider. Our customers will feel the difference, now, and over the years to come, as we are committed to delivering continuous and never ending improvement to transform our customers’ lives and business. This is the vision we hope to share with the world: to enable a communicative and inter-connected way of life, that will lead the people of Pakistan to a brighter future.”The philosophy behind the new visual identity represents ‘freedom’, based on the unlimited possibilities offered by Wateen for its consumers to connect, share, exchange and communicate whatever they desire. The main concept for the design is to break free from all grids, rise above all constraints and simply explore the freedom provided through the internet.With this renewed spirit and a new management team to lead the transformation, the company has undergone a complete overhaul. The turn-around is completely focused on building a dynamic and customer focused organization, investing in upgrading its network and re-engineering its systems and processes to deliver outstanding services.Wateen aims to become Pakistan’s largest and most trusted name in converged communications, providing the most advanced triple-play services in telephony, Internet and Cable TV, as well as networking and data management. To this end, Wateen has already begun partnering with some of Pakistan’s leading institutions to expand its network and bring its vision of providing the internet to every household in Pakistan a little bit closer.In the last year Wateen has significantly expanded its fiber-optic network, particularly in rural areas and underserved parts of the country, where people have the most to gain from access to this vital resource. Recently, Wateen won a multi-million dollar bid from the USF to lay fiber-optic cable in Balochistan.According to recent World Bank estimates, around 68 percent of Pakistan’s population resides in rural areas – around 122 million people. Yet currently only 2-3 percent of this rural population has access to broadband internet; Wateen believes that high-speed broadband can help connect these underserved areas to the internet and by extension to the world.Wireless high-speed broadband is in fact the ideal stepping stone for launching any development campaign in rural areas, as it is not only the perfect tool for generating employment and literacy, but it also brings investment opportunities, which translate into sustainable economic growth. The company is also expanding its network into Afghanistan, providing VSAT services to Roshan Telecom Afghanistan, amongst other innovative and ground breaking projects.
It is rumored that after Ice Cream Sandwich, which is likely to surface in October this year, Jelly Bean is an option for naming the next version for Android Phones. However, this name isn’t final yet.
Based on two different but trusted sources Thisismynext.com reports that Google has already pipelined Jelly Beans – the next version of android.
Website, however, isn’t clear about the version number that will be given to Jelly Beans.
Report further predicts that “game-changing stuff” that had originally been scheduled for Ice Cream Sandwich is now being pushed to Jelly Bean.
Google’s earlier Android versions are:
1.5 Cupcake,
1.6 Donut,
2.0/2.1 Eclair,
2.2 Froyo,
2.3 Gingerbread,
3.0 Honeycomb
Based on two different but trusted sources Thisismynext.com reports that Google has already pipelined Jelly Beans – the next version of android.
Website, however, isn’t clear about the version number that will be given to Jelly Beans.
Report further predicts that “game-changing stuff” that had originally been scheduled for Ice Cream Sandwich is now being pushed to Jelly Bean.
Google’s earlier Android versions are:
1.5 Cupcake,
1.6 Donut,
2.0/2.1 Eclair,
2.2 Froyo,
2.3 Gingerbread,
3.0 Honeycomb
Aiming to take internet users’ online experience to the next level, wi-tribe has partnered with Microsoft to promote its faster and lighter browser, Internet Explorer 9 (IE9), said a statement issued wi-tribe today.
This is another industry-first by wi-tribe, adding more value to their customers’ online experience.
Through this partnership, wi-tribe will ensure easy availability of one of the most secure, widely deployed and easy-to-use web browsers for its customers, which is sure to enhance their online experience by enabling the latest, media-rich websites.
IE9 is a highly advanced browser that supports HTML5, and promises to deliver a seamless and secure internet browsing experience, empowered by a robust set of built-in security and privacy features.
In addition to this partnership, wi-tribe is also proud to be recognized as a Microsoft Registered Partner status. For both wi-tribe and Microsoft, these are some of many exciting steps to be taken during this strategic alliance, aimed at bringing a greater range of world-class offerings to the market by exploiting the long-term synergy between both companies.
Speaking about Microsoft & wi-tribe’s new venture, CEO of wi-tribe Pakistan, Mustafa Peracha, says,
“As a registered partner, wi-tribe is very excited about collaborating with Microsoft for the global launch of Internet Explorer 9, a cutting-edge browser promising a captivating and superior web browsing experience for customers and developers alike.We are confident that this alliance will bring a host of value additions to our own community of users, enhancing their online experience to an entirely new and refreshing level. This is an exciting start of a long-term partnership.”
Total telecom investments in Pakistan will reach US$ 2.4 billion by 2020, telecom sector revenues would cross Rs. 620 billion by the same year and mobile subscribers are expected to be around 161 Million, approximately 89% of the total population, said a report prepared by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority.
According to the “Vision 2020” document, owing to the continued trend towards mobile services, the fixed line subscribers would more or less maintain the 5 million average till 2020 while the broadband subscribers are expected to be 19.5 million.
Report Highlights:
Telecom investments to reach $2.4 billion
Telecom sector revenues to cross Rs. 620 billion
Cellular Mobile subscriptions to reach 161 million
Broadband subscribers to reach 19.5 million
The PTA “Vision 2020” document released today, says that, during the next ten years, improved quality of telecom systems and services would become a critical determinant of competitiveness in ICT. The growth and development of ICTs today has led to their wide diffusion and application, thus escalating their economic and social impact across the countries.
Realizing the importance of upcoming convergence era where both information and communication technologies would be offered through a same platform, it is also fostering its efforts to promote the ICT sector by its proactive initiatives. PTA sticks to its mission of envisaging new and emerging technologies and their implications in a comprehensive regulatory framework to continue to provide fair and competitive market for the stakeholders, as well as to ensure high Quality ICT services.
The next ten years would bring in a ubiquitous personalized communication lifestyle where any service can run on any device, on any network and in any location over a Broadband connection. Only 0.47% of our population has attained subscription to broadband. Broadband 2.0 networks will eventually replace the current broadband networks.
Moving to these new networks offers the chance to increase efficiency and reduce operating costs in the longer term for network operators and Broadband is a key tool to achieve these remedial actions, the document added.
e-Pakistan is a unique concept that has been envisioned for the next ten years. The notion aims to employ the substantial telecommunication infrastructure both in terms of fixed and wireless for resolving the nation’s social issues like literacy and health. These well built communication highways could be utilized to outreach a large segment of masses unable to encompass basic health and education services.
The concept also focuses for knowledge sharing in different domains of ICT for development and facilitates multi stakeholder partnerships and networking among governments, industry, academia and civil society organizations of Pakistan. A huge wave of local content and applications is to be provided through this infrastructure enabling it to bring apposite values to people of Pakistan way beyond than the basic voice and data services.
Document says that, Mobile cellular technology has been primarily focused on the consumer market, acting as a substitute for often unavailable wired telephony. Now visions of 4G and beyond, including established technologies such as WiMAX are heralding the age of convergence. The most prominent example of convergence is TV over telecom networks. Mobile phones are now capable of running sophisticated applications and have become an important platform through 3G platforms.
Mobile payments would stand as the most demanding service; the present effort by PTA to shape up mobile banking regulations in collaboration with State Bank of Pakistan is result of this foresee approach towards smoothening regulatory framework for mobile payments. Agriculture as a primary sector of the economy also encompasses huge potential to offer mobile agriculture services to farmers and food production companies.
The “Vision 2020” Document further said that the most business models of telecom sector currently still rely upon subscriber line rentals and usage charges. Increasingly, new revenue streams are appearing in the form of either access (usually to a Web-based service) or carriage charges (usually paid by content provider) or revenue-sharing with the providers of content and application services. This new revenue streams are expected to come into play especially for fixed line telecommunication market.
Moreover, with the emergence of all-IP Next Generation Networks (NGNs), Internet Protocol Virtual Private Networks (IPVPN) will integrate voice and non-voice communications for enterprises. It may be kept in mind that most profitable business for fixed line operators is the enterprise data market yet voice traffic remains a cash cow, a continuing source of liquidity that makes the efficacy aspect of the larger telecom companies, the document added.
The year 2020 will witness Pakistan as a country with 100% NGN infrastructure. The divisions between voice & data, circuit switch or packet or cellular and fixed- line, telecom or broadcasting would be a thing of the past, and operators will providing a host of services on a converged infrastructure platform.
Mr. Naqvi is the renowned professional in the telecom and broadband sector by having leading roles in different cellular and telecom companies in Pakistan and abroad.
In his brief tenure of two and half years at Qubee, he successfully led the company towards launch and expansion of the WiMAX internet services in four cities of Pakistan. Qubee claims to have attained more than 55,000 subscriptions during the time.
Mr. Naqvi had previously served Ufone as President and Chief Executive Officer and Chief Commercial Officer. He had been associated with Mobilink, Paktel and Instaphone as regional manager. Besides, he worked for Etisalat as senior advisor.
Mubashir Naqvi had worked for Mint Consulting Group (MCG) earlier from May 2008 to April 2009 in the meantime and now he has again joined the consulting company as top official.
MCG is a unique group of companies operating globally and providing services both in Pakistan and Internationally. It is a consultancy firm providing top of the line services in Telecom, Head Hunting, Training & Development, Investments, Business Audits, Market Research, Agro & Farming, and Allied Professional Services to its customers.
Amidst speculations of strategic information leakage at the top level Samsung has decided not to disclose the sales numbers of its phone or tablet devices from this quarter onwards. Samsung also believes that this information might give rise to rumors in the market or disrupt their immediate action plans. Therefore, in order to curb those aspects down it’s the leading news houses that will get impacted negatively on the go. The phone sales data information might offer vital queues to the competing brands and one must act in a methodical manner next time on they write any rumor based news on Samsung.
Samsung seems to have acted tough on the competing brands however; Apple has all reasons to share their success story with its shareholders. It will be interesting to note if these disclosures impact the capital market gains of Samsung in Korea.
The best league brands should not really have concerns in sharing their sales data at the time of financial results. Any which way you look at it Samsung is definitely not doing well in most of its product line sales and that’s the reason as to why they came with such a non disclosure policy out of the blues.
The best league brands should not really have concerns in sharing their sales data at the time of financial results. Any which way you look at it Samsung is definitely not doing well in most of its product line sales and that’s the reason as to why they came with such a non disclosure policy out of the blues.
On other hands, Zong’s PR department isn’t confirming the news. It said that Mr. Mehdi is working as HR head of the company and it isn’t aware of any resignation coming from Mr. Mehdi.
It is said that Mr. Mehdi resigned due to disagreement with with the Chinese CFO and CEO. Ali Mehdi is the third Director HR to have resigned from Zong.
We are yet to have any information about Ali Mehdi’s future, however, we know that he had offers from Warid – prior to joining Zong. Telenor can be another potential stop for him in coming days.
It will not be out of place to mention that Zong is infamous for HR policies and practices. Variance of value for Pakistani and Chinese management is notable there. Moreover, the COO slot which became vacant after Mr. Zafar Usmani left is yet to be filled.
Dr. Yaseen, Chairman PTA told this to Senate’s Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunication, which expressed concerns over the illegal grey traffic issue.
Chairman PTA Dr. Mohammed Yaseen told the committee that the existing monitoring system is capable of detecting limited number of Voice Over Internet Protocols (VoIPs) whereas VoIPs protocols evolves continuously. Therefore, the monitoring capability of Pakistan is limited.
He said both legal and illegal operators had been involved in gray trafficking and even some people installed VoIP equipment in their homes. The existing monitoring system is capable of checking only 30 percent international voice traffic while the 70 percent passed without check.
The up-gradation of equipment requires about $10 million, which could save at least $137 million per annum.
Now the problem is not that the equipment is costly and Pakistani authorities and operators can’t afford it. It’s APC rate that’s set so high that it becomes unviable for legal operators to terminate the calls on their network through legal means.
In simple words, for each international incoming call if an operator has to pay 5 rupees per minute as APC, then isn’t it more viable to illegally terminate this same minute for mere 3 rupees or even less?
The issue is set as unresolved. Operators are competing with low priced VoIP telephony companies – which they can’t if APC is there. In the presence of APC, operators decided not to upgrade their equipment at all to save some money that they can.
Now who increased this APC rate, and how illegal traffic grew, we all know this.
