Wateen is Re-launching on October 31st: ProPakistani

Wateen is Re-launching on October 31st
MCB Employs IBM and Misys to Streamline Treasury Operations
Nokia Announces Lumia 800 and Lumia 710
Nokia Unveils Four Asha Series Mid-Range Phones
Pakistani Footballers to Get Trained by Manchester United
Internet Users in Pakistan Cross 20 Million Mark
PTCL Reintroduces Services, Revises Tariff

Posted: 27 Oct 2011 02:18 AM PDT

Highly anticipated re-launch of Wateen Telecom is to see the light of the day on October 31st, 2011 – we have confirmed with sources.

From what we have heard so far is that there's a press conference planned in Lahore on the same day in the evening.

New products, network expansion and new logo will be unveiled to the press and select bloggers.

Wateen is availing it's second chance of getting deeper into Pakistani WiMAX market with plenty of new offerings that include a 2 MB package and further decrease in price for it's flagship 1 MB package.

We are told that conference's main highlights would be:

Change in management
Change of Logo (a teaser can be seen in print ad published today)
Network optimization and up time
Price cut for 1 MB Package
New Device

Wateen will target the masses with it's industry best rate for 1 MB Package, which is now going to be cheaper than before. This will come bundled with powerful new device from GreenPacket.

Packages won't be truly unlimited – but yes, they are capped at industry best rate.

We know that Wateen customers were not comfortable with the internet down time on Wateen, and this is where the company has worked in past few months. According to this source in company – Wateen has deployed 240 new sites plus optimized another 100 to make sure that there's blanket coverage with minimum down time.

According to internal sources, Wateen's downtime is now less than 4 percent – which of course they are trying to further optimize with time.

We will keep an eye on the launch – and will get the information to you as it will happen.

MCB Employs IBM and Misys to Streamline Treasury Operations

Posted: 27 Oct 2011 02:15 AM PDT

IBM and its Business Partner Misys have been employed by Muslim Commercial Bank (MCB) Limited to automate the bank’s Treasury Operations.

The project will improve efficiencies and help the bank to comply with new regulations from the State Bank of Pakistan. IBM will provide implementation services alongside business partner, Misys, to deploy Misys Opics Plus which will standardize financial mechanisms and minimise complexity, helping to sustain MCB Bank's position as one of the leading banks in the region.

The new solution will integrate bank's financial instruments and departments, improving transparency and accountability of financial management and supporting decision making and governance. The bank’s clients will get a single point of access to a diverse set of services.

The project is part of bank’s efforts to streamline their existing operations in line of the new regulations aiming at revamping and integrating financial services by making collection and credit operations much more efficient. MCB has more than 1,100 branches in Pakistan and growing. In an effort to drive efficiency and enhance operational speed and flexibility, IBM will provide MCB Bank a centralized approach to systems and operations enabling the bank to meet various challenges of complex capital markets and prepare for future growth. IBM will provide implementation, Project Management Office (PMO), testing and training services along with Misys Opics Plus, a leading treasury & capital markets solution.

Misys Opics Plus runs on the .NET service-oriented architecture (SOA) platform that delivers flexible customization features for business re-engineering along with high levels of scalability. It also allows financial institutions to manage risk more effectively, consolidate systems, reduce costs and get back to the business of serving the evolving needs of their clients.

"Innovation is what has helped MCB become one of the leading banks in the region," said Mohamad Ramzan, Head of Treasury & Foreign Exchange at MCB Bank. "IBM's services and the deployment of Misys Opics Plus will enable us to take new products to the market faster while meeting central bank’s regulatory requirements."

Once it is completed, the MCB finance system will play an important role in providing faster and higher quality financial services that benefit individual citizens as well as the economy. Through its design it can have an important impact on the growth rate and allocation of resources in the local economy.

"The application of smarter solutions has a key role to play in the transformation of banking around the world," said Farhan Ashfaq, Financial Services Sector Leader at IBM Pakistan. "In countries like Pakistan where companies are still building their infrastructures, banks have an opportunity to implement systems that increase efficiency, stability and manageability of their organisations, help manage risks. allowing them to leapfrog the competition and win new customers."

"Now more than ever, banks require a comprehensive technology to handle the intricate requirements of the global marketplace," said Michel Daenen, Sales Director for the Capital Markets Business in Middle East and Africa at Misys. "The flexible architecture of Misys Opics Plus ensures rapid pricing and risk calculations, allowing users to manage the high volume and complex financial instruments more effectively. This, in turn, means banks need fewer systems and less manual processing, enabling them to take new products to market much more quickly and more efficiently."

Today's announcement with MCB Bank Limited is another example of how IBM Global Services and IBM Business Partners team with clients to solve business problems and help them capitalize on new opportunities. Clients now are looking to IT service providers for more than just cost cutting. Global clients need help finding ways to better leverage IT into their business to stimulate growth and prepare for the future. By tightly weaving together business insights, an industry-leading software portfolio, world-class technology research and operations expertise, IBM, along with its partners, is redefining what it means to design, deploy and deliver IT services on a global scale. As a result, clients achieve faster return on investment while freeing up resources to focus on innovative projects.

Nokia Announces Lumia 800 and Lumia 710

Posted: 26 Oct 2011 09:22 PM PDT

I can bet this is going to be the last effort that Nokia could make in this decade to get it's head back to track – which so far seems to be working to some extent.

Highly leaked Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 are dubbed as "True Windows Phones", which boost the design that Nokia is bragging about plus the Windows Operating System that it is using as it's last resort to retain the dipping smartphone share.

It merits mentioning here that you must not expect both the phones hitting Pakistani stores earlier than next year.

Nokia Lumia 800

If you look from top – there's nothing magical unlike Stephen Elop repeatedly described the the Lumia 800. There's no catchy innovation or killer application that comes with Nokia Lumia 800 – however, with the looks and feel in a single piece body, Lumia is set to win countless aesthetic hearts.

Windows Mango has already managed to impress the reviewers, especially with it's new expressive icons and user interface. From what we have seen and heard so far, integration of Nokia's solid hardware with OS is pretty smooth.

Nokia's renowned Bright AMOLED ClearBlack display with toughened glass stretching to the sides of the phone is what will catch your eyes in the first contact. The Back, Start and Search buttons on the front of the screen are set in the glass on the front of course.

On the back, there's an eight-megapixel auto-focus camera with Carl Zeiss optics.

Inside, there's a 1.4GHz processor and graphics co-processor driving the operating system to deliver smooth user experience. In addition there's 16GB of internal user memory, with cloud computing integrated to offer 25GB of free SkyDrive storage.

Connectivity includes up to HSDPA 3G, WiFi and Bluetooth. Talktime is rated at up to 13 hours, or standby for up to 335 hours.

Price and Availability:

Nokia says that Lumia 800 will be priced at or around PKR 50,000 – while it's availability is not possible before next year. Company said that Nokia Lumia 800 will ship to 6 European countries in November while to another 5 Asian countries (including Hong Kong, India, Russia, Singapore and Taiwan) by year end. More markets including Middle East and Pakistan to follow after that.

Nokia Lumia 710

Nokia Lumia 710 was the other launched smartphone by Nokia today. This affordable smartphone aims to cover the masses who want to get going with a Windows Phone, enhanced with features that bring Nokia's great strengths to bear.

The 3.7-inch screen offers an 800 x 480-pixel resolution with a ClearBlack TFT for great colors and readability even in bright sunlight. At the rear, there's a five-megapixel auto-focus camera with an LED flash. The camera can also shoot HD video at 30 frames-per-second.

It's designed for social, offering full integration of Facebook, Twitter and Linked-In, and photo-sharing can be done in just a couple of taps.

The Internet experience on the Nokia Lumia 710 is powered by Internet Explorer 9, offering excellent performance and compatibility with a wide range of modern HTML5 web apps.

Packing the same 1.4GHz processor, hardware acceleration and graphics processor as the Nokia Lumia 800, the Nokia Lumia 710 offers exceptional performance at this price point.

Inside there's 8GB of user storage memory and 512MB of RAM. It has quadband radio reception, 3G up to HSDPA, WiFi and Bluetooth, so the communications options are covered.

Price and Availability

Lumia 710 is likely to be priced at PKR 32,000 – and is suppose to hit Pakistani shelves not earlier than year 2012.

Nokia Lumia 710 will first appear in Hong Kong, India, Russia, Singapore and Taiwan before becoming available in Middle East in 2012.

Nokia Unveils Four Asha Series Mid-Range Phones

Posted: 26 Oct 2011 09:20 PM PDT

Nokia has announced four models for it's newly announced Asha range, mid-end phones that comes between feature-phones and smartphones at an affordable price.

Primarily aimed for emerging markets, Nokia targets Asha series for the next billion to get themselves equipped with low-cost phones that will offer more than just the basic telephony features.

Four Asha Phones, namely the 200, 201, 300 and 303 hold their specific target audience based on features and price. Keep reading to know further:

Nokia Asha 303 – Smarter QWERTY with Touch

The Nokia Asha 303 comes with a large 2.6" capacitive touch screen with a QWERTY keypad. The Nokia Asha 303 is built with Internet and social networks ease in mind.

The device harnesses a powerful 1Ghz engine, 3G and WLAN to deliver a fast Internet experience. Social networks, email and IM are at the center of the experience, easily accessible from the homescreen.

The Nokia Asha 303 is powered by the cloud-based Nokia Browser, which by compressing the web by up to 90%, provides higher speeds and a more affordable access to the Internet.

Angry Birds Lite, the popular mobile game, comes preinstalled, together with support for other globally relevant applications such as Facebook Chat, Whatsapp messaging and the latest release of Nokia Maps for Series 40 (in selected markets).

Price:

Nokia says that the estimated retail price for the Nokia Asha 303 will be approximately PKR 13,500. It is expected to start shipping in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Nokia Asha 300 – Touch and type and swipe

The beautifully designed Nokia Asha 300 is a touch device which also offers the convenience of a keypad.

The Nokia Asha 300 comes with 1GHz processor and 3G to deliver a faster Internet and social networking experience. The Nokia Browser allows for fast, affordable and localized Internet access by compressing web pages by up to 90%.

Users have fast access to messaging, email and instant messaging from the home screen and can swipe to access apps, music or games from the Nokia Store. The Nokia Asha 300 also arrives preloaded with the popular Angry Birds game.

The Nokia Asha 300 comes with a 5 megapixel camera, a music player, FM radio, Bluetooth connectivity and can handle memory cards up to 32GB.

Price:

The estimated retail price for the Nokia Asha 300 will be approximately PKR 10,000. It is expected to start shipping in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Nokia Asha 200 – QWERTY with Dual SIM

The Nokia Asha 200 is dual SIM phone with Easy Swap functionality, allowing consumers to easily change their second SIM without switching the device off.

It is a QWERTY phone designed to meet the needs of young, urban consumers who want to constantly stay in touch.

The Nokia Asha 200 features integrated social networking, email and IM, adding RenRen, Orkut and Flickr support. Nokia Asha 200 makes it possible to carry thousands of songs with support for 32 GB memory cards and providing a battery for an amazing 52-hour playback time.

Price:

The estimated retail price for the Nokia Asha 200 will be approximately PKR 7,000. It is expected to start shipping in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Nokia Asha 201 – Email, Chat and Live Updates

The single SIM version of the Nokia Asha 200, the Nokia Asha 201 is ideal for young consumers who wish to stay socially connected, are price conscious and like listening to music.

The Nokia Asha 201 has great music features including a high performing loudspeaker, enhanced stereo FM radio and ringtone tuning. With the Nokia Browser you get even faster, even better and more affordable access to the Internet.

It supports up to 32 GB memory cards and provides a battery for 52 hours of music playback time. The Nokia Asha 201 also supports push email as well as the popular Whatsapp messaging app.

Price:

The estimated retail price for the Nokia Asha 201 will be approximately PKR 7,000. It is expected to start shipping in the first quarter of 2012.

Pakistani Footballers to Get Trained by Manchester United

Posted: 26 Oct 2011 09:12 PM PDT

Read this post in Urdu

As we reported earlier, Zong has entered into three year deal with Manchester United, and now according to Dawn, part of this arrangement will see 32 footballers from all over Pakistan to be trained by Manchester United players under the guidance of their coaches including Sir Alex Ferguson.

Country wide trials will be held from next year to select the best players between the ages of 10 and 18 who will receive training by Manchester United players and coaches.

However, it remains unlikely that any of the club's staff and coaches would visit Pakistan because of the security situation in the country.

While speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Rizwan Akhter, the Director of Advertising at Promotion at Zong said:

"Seeing the popularity of football among youngsters in Pakistan, Zong has entered into a three-year contract with Manchester United. It is hoped that this one of a kind partnership will lead to prosperity, growth and triumph for the sport here."

"Though we are focusing on the grassroots level for now, it is hoped that along with the inspiration gained from learning more about the famous English club with such an interesting history will come improvement in football grounds and academies here."

He further said that the deal would allow Zong to look at the workings of the club. And by noting the positives about how one of the biggest clubs in the world is run, changes could be made to the footballing infrastructure in Pakistan.

The partnership already makes Zong the official telecom partner of Manchester United in Pakistan as well as providing the rights to exclusive interviews, news and footage of behind-the-scenes activities.

Manchester United have an estimated 10 million fans across Pakistan and this deal will further endear Zong to the clubs fans, footballing enthusiasts as well as inspire younger players to take up football as a sport.

Internet Users in Pakistan Cross 20 Million Mark

Posted: 26 Oct 2011 09:10 PM PDT

Pakistani internet users have been on the rise with accelerated pace, crossing 20 million benchmark with a greater percentage accessing the internet via mobile phones, said Freedom on the Net in it's 2011 annual report.

The report cited International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and said that estimated users have been surging significantly on monthly basis however, the Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan (ISPAK) estimated a far lower number of internet users at only ten million.

On the other hands, some of the local think tanks said that the internet users have crossed 24 million benchmark at present with surging number of broadband and mobile internet users.

The report stated that the Internet is available in all the major cities of the country, as well as in many remote areas. The majority of people use dial-up connections whereas broadband internet is growing speedily in big cities.

With the explosion of mobile-phone use and the gradual spread of broadband internet in Pakistan, access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) has increased, as have citizen journalism and online activism, the report said.

Pakistan does not yet have a third generation (3G) network, which is also a hindrance for the spread of broadband internet and other wireless services in the country. Remote areas of the country have no access to broadband, and are left with only a slow, intermittent dial-up connection, rendering any meaningful online activities very difficult.

The number of broadband users reached almost 1.5 million mark. Pakistan is recently ranked as one of the top countries that registered high growth rate in broadband Internet penetration, Point Topic, a global broadband tracker said in its report published a few months back.

The country, which has seen a boom in its telecom sector and information technology services in recent years, recorded around 46.2 percent growth of subscribers and is placed fourth on the ranking list.

There more than 50 internet service providers including 10 broadband companies operating in different parts of the country under their license at various charges.

These service providers have brought advanced technology to deploy their network including Wimax, DSL, FTTH and HFC. The number of operators with variety of technology has been expanding base of technology users with competition, showing the falling rates of service by every passing month.

The different service providers include PTCL, Wateen, wi-tribe, Qubee, Link Dot Net, Infinity and Comsats. The broadband packages are lowest in the world ranging from Rs. 250 to Rs 3,000 per month depending on the speed and utility of data by the subscribers. However, the stiff competition among the operators has resulted constant decline in quality of service.

Pakistan has already developed and expanded its technology highways with international undersea cable for its future demands. Presently, there are four undersea cables connecting Pakistan to rest of world including PTCL's owned SMW3, SMW4 & IMEWE and one with TWA.

The domestic internet highways or domestic Fiber backbones providers are PTCL, Wateen, Mobilink and Multinet.

Internet has been evolving in its different technological modes through high-speed broadband and has become a basic need of the people for the purpose of information, education, entertainment and business. Hence, it is an indispensable source that plays a vital role in different aspects of a masses’ life.

Pakistan's digital growth prospects have begun to look brighter lately. Besides having a large bilingual (English and Urdu) Internet using population as the estimated viewership of blogs have reached nearly 3.4 million.

PTCL Reintroduces Services, Revises Tariff

Posted: 26 Oct 2011 09:09 PM PDT

Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) has re-introduced a variety of value-added packages for its landline services.

Company has said that it is now offering unlimited on-net calls on Sundays, zero line rent budget packages, Double Play Packages and International Packages.

Along with company announced revision for On-net tariffs to Rs. 1.10 for PSTN to PSTN and Vfone, both for Local and Long Distance Calls effective from November, 1, 2011.

"We are constantly working on our network rehabilitation and improvement of customer services," said PTCL Senior Executive Vice President Commercial, Naveed Saeed.

"We have vastly improved our widespread landline network across Pakistan by introducing next-generation network switches, multiservice access gateways and optical network units", he added.

PTCL's landline service comprises GPON Services (FTTH Solution for Triple Play Services), VDSL 2 Bonding technology services, and Video Phone services.

"PTCL is determined to cater to all of our customers' growingly sophisticated communications needs," said PTCL Executive Vice President Wireline Business, Aasif Inam.

"As we continue with our enhancement process, our customers' valuable support and sustained confidence in our services remains our key priority," he concluded.