IPTV in Pakistan

The Falling Prices of DSL

2009-01-22T14:31:00.000+05:00

The market dynamics are getting quite competitive for the telecom sector with every passing day. A small ISP from one city in Pakistan comes up with a package with double bandwidth with the same price, about a couple of months ago the narrow band industry came down to a mere phone call charging instead of paying by the hour. This fast change might bring about similar changes to the broadband industry too.
Perhaps this is quite healthy for the economy where the public enjoys more and more facilities that are affordable in these days of adversity and the new opportunities find their ways into every house, with the growing online market trends and earning opportunities I am sure this competition will pay more to the nation as compared to the fall in prices for the telephony industry. Hopefully triple play is going to find its way in the true sense with voip. Students are pouring in to use broadband as a basic necessity, where 20 years ago even using dial up was a luxury, the IT infrastructure with building optic networks and low cost bandwidth will help structure a more educated and learned society that might bring out productivity of the unemployed class especially the ladies who find it exciting to blog sitting and home and creating their own networks; advertising their cuisines and fashion designs, photography and all the other hobbies that were never shared or appreciated other than their own household

More than 100K customers

2009-01-10T23:21:00.001+05:00

During the last days of 2008, PTCL hit its 100K broadband customers target; the growth in Pakistan for the last two years has been outstanding especially after the launch of broadband by PTCL that has made the service affordable for every household. The growth in internet based industry has overwhelmed and attracted a lot of public towards this rather growing trend in the country. Free dialup in the country is another encouraging sign of providing a feeler of the internet experience to the ones that lacked initiative and also as a back up to the broadband and DSL connectivity. It has helped gain the confidence of being connected always. The general view of common household has also changed from being unethical to being more productive and informative. Books and newspapers are replaced by online services, blogs and informative sites. PTCL is looking forward to cross more than double of this figure by the end of June this year.
Several new features are being added and upgraded regularly, although the services currently offered do not qualify for the high standards a customer normally digs into, perhaps they can be rated as a beginning of a new concept for the public that never had such facilities in the past. With low ARPU and high investment service the change is rather faster than anticipated and much is on its way to surface the industry in the coming days

The Free Broadband offer is closing down in three days

2008-12-28T23:41:00.000+05:00

The last three days for ordering your free one month of PTCL Broadband. The offer was a free month of Broadband connection if the order was placed in December. The installation speed has picked up after including new HR in the field support to facilitate all the orders coming in and to build up the repute that has been facing a lot of criticism for some time now. Recently my personal feedback of the service has improved and the orders I received directly have been quite encouraging. I guess the last three days should not go waste, for those who might not have quite a clear understanding of the offer. Let me clarify if for the benefit of the readers, that the service is for one month free if the order is placed in December, irrespective of the time when the connection is installed… Enjoy free broadband for a month and if you order Smart TV over the same connection you can also enjoy the free TV service till July 09

So enjoy all :)

IT policy revision by the MoIT

2008-12-04T16:08:00.000+05:00

The MoIT is regulating a new IT policy and I’ve read a lot on how they should be involving the service providers to increase the reliability of this policy and to ensure that it will take Pakistan a long way in developing the long awaited market player. According to my knowledge they have invited nominations for creation of a group consisting of the stakeholders in IT policy making and this group will involve participation from the Federal and Provincial governments, the regulator and the service providers
This sort of open forum would quite facilitate the concerns of everyone and hopefully be a great step ahead for the country in developing the industry that has been the biggest money maker for several economies for quite some time. Perhaps it’s never too late to take a step ahead

Free Broadband for December 08 and Free IPTV till June 09

2008-12-03T13:34:00.002+05:00

PTCL has always been seen as the rigid state telecom company with no flexibility in packages, no discounts and very rigid towards customers. This has been recently changed a lot; by making customer oriented packages, usage incentives, bulk discounts and lowest rates in most of the services provided. Recently PTCL has announced one month free broadband for anyone who orders in December. With no installation and equipment charges, this is a wonderful test opportunity for customers who have been willing to try the broadband experience but were reluctant in taking the initiative. In consideration of the previous offers where the orders placed were not delivered soon enough to deliver the free period experience, the company has put this as a free service from the date of installation for a complete month. The only constraint is putting in the order within the month of December
Also the IPTV free period has been extended till June 09, which means that the one month trial that offended people is no more, the TV can be tried at for more than half a year with the facilities of rewind, pause, resume, parental control, video on demand, etc.
Although the limitation of one connection for one TV is not a very good alternate to the people who view more than one TVs in their homes on the cost of a single cable connection, but the limitation is being worked out to be provided as an unbundled service; the customers will not have to pay for the broadband charges twice, but they will be paying for the additional IPTV line
HR has been inducted and trained for better provisioning and troubleshooting, to ensure that the customers enjoy a better service from the old trusted name

Smart TV free period to be extended

2008-11-17T22:54:00.002+05:00

The free period for the Smart TV is more than likely to be extended once again. The management is determined to not charge for the service unless it desired so by the customers. They are determined to provide a standard that befits the service, uninterrupted TV and broadband, that can really match the expectations of the customers. The free duration might be longer than the one or two month grants previously.

The channels are getting better everyday, new movies are being added. The content is being controlled to not go beyond the ethical values of our nation and the field staff is being pushed to rectify issues at lightening speed. all pending complaints were resolved within the last week. The escalation level of complaints is being closely monitored to restrict complaints to less than 48 hrs at the max at present and will most probably be pushed down to less than 24 hrs and then eventually to same day complaint rectification
With customer base of more than 75k customers, more than all the providers of the country combined, this initiative is quite a difficult task to accomplish but being achieved at a remarkable speed.

Empowering customers

2008-11-12T16:15:00.002+05:00

PTCL is looking forward to put in web portals that will not only support simple customer options like password change, etc; but will also empower them to see their line quality, downgrade bandwidth to stay connected and know exactly who is looking into their complaints so that the next time they call the call center they can tell exactly where the case is pending and follow it up from that exact point instead of going through a whole lot of question and answer sessions
With free PTCL dial up connections, the public at large, even if using other DSL connections can be at an ease of always being connected and going online to send emails. PTCL customers will easily monitor the problems in their connections and also learn the capability of thier lines as regards bandwidth and services

PTCL enhances Human Resource for broadband services

2008-11-10T20:37:00.003+05:00

Staff Reporter

Islamabad—Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited Business Zone North has increased staff for providing broadband services to the valued customers of Islamabad and Rawalpindi in a befitting manner.

PTCL Executive Vice President Business Zone North said that it is our prime aim for providing fault free, prompt and modern telecom services, particularly broad band services. He issued this statement during meeting with the senior staff of PTCL Broadband services in Islamabad. He said that for the purpose of getting trust of the customers and achieving the aim of customers care target, the staff and officers should work together in a team spirit and dedication.

He claimed that our each and every step is for providing modern and state of the art technology telecom services in this present cut throat competition in telecom sector. He also directed the staff to take care of the customers, be polite and rectify the faults promptly and actively.

In order to provide PTCL services at the door steps of the customers and for close contacts with them, Business Zone North Islamabad has been continuing Temporary Customers Camps in Islamabad as well as in Rawalpindi. For this purpose one Camp at Pak PWD Housing Society Lohibehr and another at Fawara Chawk Hazro city were established. It was a day long programme for morning to evening. The senior Managers (Operations) Satellite Town and Rawalpindi Region were present whole the day for supervising the activities of these camps... Read more on Pak Observer

Packages announced by PTCL for Smart Line

2008-11-10T20:07:00.003+05:00

Smart line is PTCL phone line that has a bundled service providing Phone Line (Line rent only), broadband ADSL connection (Optional 512 kbps, 1mbps or 2 mbps) and the Smart TV (IPTV)

Packages:
Smart Line 512 kbps: Rs. 1499/-
Smart Line 1 mbps: Rs. 2299/-
Smart Line 2 mbps: Rs. 5299/-

For customers using the PTCL broadband already, the additional charge for the service is about Rs. 124 for the IPTV service (as they are already paying line rent in addition to the Broadband package)

The price of the STB that is required to run the IPTV service is Rs. 500/- per month for two years or Rs. 9995/- one time

The service includes 90 broadcast channels, out of which 10 channels can be paused or rewind upto 1 hour. There is parental lock for junevile viewing (although there is nothing broadcasted to be locked) and more than 200 video movies. The entire content is DVD quality, something normal TV viewers are still to experience through this service

The official site and the list of channels

2008-11-09T00:20:00.004+05:00

For people who are looking for more details on PTCL Smart TV, the official site is

http://www.ptclsmart.com.pk/

the phone number to apply for the service is 0800-80800
currently the service is only available in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi, soon to be expanded in 13 new cities

Smart TV in 13 new cities

2008-11-06T18:39:00.002+05:00

PTCL is expanding its IPTV service in further 13 cities before the start of the next year. Technical and commercial teams are testing the service and the markets for this launch that will surface before the end of this year and commercially will be announced soon after

The cities are: Taxila, Wah, Abbottabad, Peshawar, Gujrawala, Gujrat, Sialkot, Faisalabad, Mutan, Sheikhupura, Bahawalpur, Hyderabad, Quetta

Broadband launched in these cities was completed within the past couple of months with a view to expand the new reolutionary service all over Pakistan. The management is keen on launching the service without any further delays and hence teams from all relevant departments are doing the work in parallel to bring this to reality

Staff trainings are going to be a part of daily ruts for the company, where the experienced existing staff will be assisting the trainers to deliver expertise from their daily experiences

New IS systems are being developed, tested and deployed for OFAN and copper networks, that can be customised according to the requirements and the legacy of waiting 6 months for a simple development to be found no where in the future. In house development teams are being built to develop the required solutions

The change PTCL has been advertising is being deployed in every field of expertise. It will not be long before the customes will speak up for this change at large

PTCL, LMKR ink deed for deployment of GIS solution

2008-11-05T23:00:00.004+05:00

Staff Report

ISLAMABAD�Pakistan Telecommunications Company Limited (PTCL) and LMK Resources (LMKR) Pakistan Wednesday signed an agreement for the deployment of a state-of-the-art turnkey Geographical Information System (GIS) solution.
PTCL's SEVP South Adel Soufah and EVP of LMKR Mahmood Arsalan signed the agreement on behalf of their respective companies.
The solution will enable PTCL to better manage Access and Transmission Networks and inside plant (OSP and ISP) infrastructure including its copper and optical fibre network.
The project, which would provide the network mapping of PTCL on the lines of google earth, would not only facilitate the PTCL to trace any fault in its fire optic network, but also it would assist the PTCL consumers by early repair of any fault in PTCL network.
Under the project, one of the most strategic developments in the country, would enable the PTCL technical staff through the GIS component, a greater visibility by providing quantitative andqualitative spatial information about the capacity and integrity of the PTCL network and pinpoint faults and issues when they arise.
Through the project, LMKR Pakistan would launch network mapping of Islamabad under its first phase.
According to the scope of the project, the system will eventually be implemented across Pakistan and will become the only project of its kind to be put into practice on this scale in the South Asian region.
As part of the project, LMKR will be delivering this project on a turnkey basis. The objective is to design a robust and streamlined architecture that can be scaled to the national level.
The resulting solution will significantly improve the operational efficiency through consolidation and better representation of spatial information.
This system will become the backbone of PTCL's decision-making framework in terms of planning new expansions and maintaining existing infrastructure.
It will also enable timely and efficient deployment of newtechnologies such as GPON and NGN. The consumer being the ultimate beneficiary will experience consistent quality of services and a more fault-tolerant network

Source: http://dailymailnews.com/200811/06/news/dmcitypage09.html

Developing to be the state telecom PTCL should

2008-11-04T23:42:00.000+05:00

The president has announced heavy investments in developing the Optic fiber network, reaching the gap areas for broadband and multimedia. Investing in automation and HR
These steps are very promising towards an ideal service provider it should be. Flows are being improved and implemented to the core with checks and balances. Regular followups from regions on a daily basis and making sure that the customers are served in order to give them the comfort of having a service from the largest provider in the country

PTCL donates 10 Million Rupees to Baluchistan Earthquake

2008-10-31T22:19:00.000+06:00

The president Mr. Walid Irshaid, presents Rs. 10,000,000 to the Baluchistan relief fund. The earthquake has taken more than 200 ppl. this region has been in this fear of the earthquake for quite some time now after the quake in the northern areas that also effected Islamabad with the fall of Margalla Towers. Tutonic plates are getting more active now

Launch of the service in the initial stage

2008-10-22T14:39:00.000+06:00

PTCL had launched the IPTV service on August 14th at the ITCN Asia in Karachi. It was given as a free service till October 1st but the President Mr. Walid Irshaid decided that the free service will be extended till the 1st of January next year. The tariff declared for the service was Rs. 300 in addition to the price of broadband already circulated. The company waived off the PTCL line rent on the phone, hence the existing broadband customers will eventually pay about Rs. 125 in addition to what they were previously paying to get this IPTV service branded as Smart TV because of its interactive functionality where customers can lock for juvenile viewing, rewind and pause, live channels at their discretion. More than 100 movies have been offered as video on demand, that can be viewed as on the DVD player, with pause, rewind and search functions. Near video on demand aka cinema channels are also available with voting among lists

A big hindrance to the customers was the price of the equipment, about Rs. 9000; this has been facilitated by dividing the price in easy 24 installments of Rs. 500 per month as an option

Optic network units are also being upgraded for compatibility with IPTV. This development has been done in Karachi and is expected to be in the three cities within a month.

The IPTV aka Smart TV is an overall wonderful experience and is recommended to be ordered early to evaluate it for free till the end of this year

First IPTV in Pakistan

2008-09-16T19:42:00.000+06:00

PTCL is the first in Pakistan to have introduced the IPTV service in the country with a soft launch in three major cities i.e. Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. Initially, the company is facing serious prolems in gathering mass to the service due to the delay in launching the service on the optic fibre network.
The service is currently available on copper networks only and that has quite a few issues regarding reachability of a 3 Mb stream more than 3 Kms radius of the DSLAM. The company is investing huge amounts in developing te optic network to the support and the next quarter will see a much better service IPTV service for Pakistan