Singapore Telecommunication (SingTel) eyes Pakistan telecom market

ISLAMABAD: Singapore Telecommunication (SingTel) is set to jump into Pakistan's telecom market and its talks with Abu Dhabi Group for sale out of more stakes of Waridtel are gearing up as SingTel already owns 30 per cent stake in Warid Telecom.
Well-placed sources told APP on condition of anonymity that the agreement between Singapore Telecommunication Company and Abu Dhabi Group is likely to be signed before June 2009. The decision comes as the company is facing a saturated domestic market while the country comprises only 4.8 million people. Feeling the heat, SingTel has spent 18 billion Singapore dollars to invest in countries such as India, Indonesia, and in the bigger Australian market. Revenue growth in Singapore is expected to slow down to single digit in the year to March 2010. Reportedly, SingTel has expressed its keenness for acquisition after warning that revenue growth in its home market would squeeze due to strong Singapore dollar.

When contacted, a senior official of Warid Telecom said that the deal with SingTel was yet to be confirmed. However, if it goes through, this deal would prove positive for the company as well as Pakistani telecom industry. SingTel earlier posted a 17 per cent drop in quarterly net profit, which is much smaller than expected. However, the company is yet to elaborate its possible targets or markets where it is eyeing acquisitions. -APP

Accord on literacy thru cell phones

KARACHI: Mobilink, Pakistan's major cellular service and part of Orascom Telecom Holding, signed a partnership agreement with United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) for provision of literacy to adolescent girls using cell phones.

Commenting on the partnership, Bilal Munir Sheikh, Vice President Marketing, Mobilink said, "as market leader, Mobilink actively supports initiatives that combine the benefits of technology to reach out to the community. This is the first of its kind initiative in the world and with Unesco's expertise in the field of education, we hope to create a model that the world can follow and learn from."

Elaborating on the project, Maurice Robson, Director Unesco stated, "this literacy programme will use mobile phones as a common and popular means of communication among the youth, to develop a mobile-based, distance post-literacy programme where the new literates receive post-literacy materials as messages on mobile.
Pakistan has one of the lowest literacy rates in Asia. There is a large gender gap. The literacy rate for males over 15 years is 63 per cent while that for females it is 36 per cent.

The reasons for the prevailing situation in Pakistan are complex. In order to maintain the literacy skills after basic literacy courses, the new literates should have constant access to reading materials, at least for three months afterwards. But for most of the new literates, reading material is scarce and the occasions to use the acquired literacy skills are rare. The programme has two phases. In the first phase, adolescent girls will receive interesting and informative text messages daily in Urdu and are expected to respond.

The method is believed to be far more effective than conventional print based post-literacy programmes in maintaining interest and in keeping literacy skills alive. The second phase of the programme includes monthly evaluation to assess the gain of knowledge, interactive exercises, a glossary of educational terms and additional resources.
The first phase of this programme will cover 250 learners in Punjab in the next 4 months and will be expanded in other areas on effective outcomes. Mobilink also supports The Citizen's Foundation education programme, Zindagi Trust, Roshni Homes Trust and Lums. -APP

PTA chief hints tax cut for telecoms

PTA has suggested the FBR to slash the taxes imposed on telecom sector from 21 per cent to 16 per cent.
ISLAMABAD: Telecom industry would hear a 'good news' in the upcoming budget as the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has recommended the federal government to curb tax ratio on the telecom sector to bring the sector at par with other sectors.
These views were expressed by Dr Muhammad Yaseen, Chairman PTA, while sharing views with media here at a local hotel after a telecom seminar held in connection with the World Telecom Day. He said heavy taxation had adversely affected the telecom growth, seeing which PTA has suggested the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to slash the taxes imposed on telecom sector from 21 per cent to 16 per cent.
When asked whether the management of Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) had informed about their step to reduce the timeline for broadband dialup, the PTA chairman said there was no decrease and if the media had any evidence, it should submit it to him and he would look into the matter.
The chairman said PTA had introduced so many steps to help grow the telecom sector and these were being hailed by the nations across the globe. "However, due to joint efforts, the fourth quarter saw a positive growth, making the annual growth positive," he added. "We have introduced mobile banking and now working on mobile agriculture and other new initiatives," he said, adding that the companies should also opt for 'out-of-box' solutions to enhance telecom growth. "There are countries with more than 100 per cent teledensity and we would have to search for new opportunities to take the telecom sector ahead," he added. Urging the telecom sector to focus on broadband services, Dr Yaseen said PTA had developed broadband group and three companies including Wateen and Mobilink were set to launch Wimax solutions for the consumers. While speaking at Nokia Siemens Networks Industry seminar as the chief guest, the Chairman PTA said to achieve cost efficiency in the operations, there is a pressing need of enhanced collaboration and partnership among all telecom companies. "By sharing infrastructure, companies can save cost and yet maintain quality. PTA is pursuing mobile operators for sharing infrastructure to reduce BTS towers and other sites so that costs of business can be tamed down," said the PTA Chief.
He emphasised on the importance of broadband proliferation to achieve goal of setting up `Information Society'. He said that massive awareness campaign is needed to be launched to improve broadband growth besides developing contents in local languages and applications.
Dr Yaseen said PTA has made coordinated efforts to facilitate broadband growth by forming a "Broadband Stakeholders Group" and other measures. He also told about PTA negotiations with State Bank to introduce Mobile Banking Services.
He said that three operators are in the process of launching mobile broadband services. Two operators have launched E-video services. All these innovative services will help provisioning of better information services to consumers and will bring increased revenues for the industry.
On this occasion, CEO USF Parvaiz Iftikhar, Salman Ansari, Saad Warraich, Country Director Nokia Siemens Networks and others also shared their views.

Source - daily times

Pakistanis Posted More Google Map Data than Any Other Country Counterparts

Silicon Valley (California), May 23 (ANI): Pakistan netizens are posting more localized information and data to the Google’s ‘map maker’ than the web users of any of the 160 countries which are using the leading internet search engine’s experiment.

Lalit Katragadda, the founder of Map Maker software informed that a particular Pakistani based in London has posted most frequent edits to the Google’s Map Maker, a user-operated software.
Katragadda, who is based in Bangalore, told The Nation via teleconference that the software updates information instantly after a user sitting anywhere in the world within 160 countries posts an edit to the live Map Maker.

When questions were put forth regarding the authenticity of the data provided by any of the net users, Katragadda said, it can always be verified by the software.

“We can always verify from authentic as well as independent sources within an hour’s time,” he added.
Any such experiment, related to a country’s geographical territory can always be a sensitive issue, and could have some implications, but the Google’s Map Maker had not come across any political issues till now.

“We have not faced any political issues so far,” Katragadda said. (ANI)