In a recent media breif by Mobilink, Rashid Khan, President and CEO said that his company “is evaluating the information memorandum of 3G spectrum and has decided to participate in the bidding”. With this announcement Pakistan’s largest cellular networks comes forward as the first potential bidder for the 3G auction scheduled for March 29, 2012.

Going further, Khan said that despite the global economic recession there was an enabling environment for cellular business in Pakistan. This comes as a very expected statement from a mobile operator in market where the ARPU is near USD 3.

It must also be noted over here that, as advertised by PTA in local newspapers earlier this week, the base price of 3G license is USD 210 million with USD 31.5 million. The auction will be conducted through multiple rounds and open outcry method while each operator can secure 2 block of spectrum.

Commenting on the base price, Rashid Khan said it was a reasonable base price determined on the basis of telecom policy. He also ruled out that the five telecom sector companies were colluding for the bid.

On the other hand, Senator Pervez Rasheed of PML(N) has questioned on the transparency of 3G auction in the senate session that the base price of 3G license of $210 million is much lower than the base price at the time of 2G license which was $290 million. He demanded to immediately stop this process and review its conditions to avoid any chances of embezzlement.

Senator Pervez was supported by Haji Adeel, Ilyas Bilour of ANP, Col. Syed Tahir Hussain Mashhadi (retd) of MQM, Prof. Khurshid of JI and others warning the government not to proceed with its auction plan without taking them into confidence. They also had reservation on the license being auctioned on “technology neutral” saying that this would be like a charity.

via Express Tribune and Business Recroder

The earlier version of the post had  a typo error in the base price of 3G license, the same has now been corrected.

PTA has published the information memorandum for 2012 auctions for both the Defunct Specturm and 3G/4G/LTE spectrum licenses. They can be downloaded from links below:

• Information Memorandum 2012 Mobile Cellular License/Spectrum Auction (3G/4G/LTE etc.)
• Information Memorandum 2012 Mobile Cellular License (Defunct)

Soruce: PTA

Finally after having a long wait we get particular date for 3G Auction in Pakistan. In recent press release Dr. Muhammad Yasin, Chairman Pakistan Telecommunication Authority described that Pakistan is going to auction third generation telecommunications licenses on March 29th, 2012 and every licenses will be generally be starting at valued from USD 210 million as well as will be sold by way of highest bid taker.

Exposing original information about the 3G license auction, Mr. Yasin declared that the total amount bidders will need to deposit with preliminary expressions of interest – to point out the importance of a bid – might possibly be $31.5 million and license terms and conditions could be from 8 to 15 years. Chairman PTA is expecting to catch the attention of a minimum of 10 to 15 potential buyers pertaining to very first bidding procedure. With the objective, PTA is actually in the process of investors’ conferences within Islamabad and also Karachi. We all know How 3G Technology Changed the World Dr. Yasin, additionally describing the auction methods, mentioned that current telecom providers could quite possibly get started providing 3G services soon after being granted a license, before the new operators start it, they’re going to have to wait right up until March 2013 to begin 3G services in the Pakistan.

He was quoted saying that there might be possibly that no minimum and maximum specifications for international equity and international operated organizations and it could be permitted domestic financing.

Giving an answer to a question he declared that prices are minimal more than that they had initially anticipated. Previously estimations recommended that the starting price for 3G licenses might possibly be $195 million, .

According to Experts the successful bid should not rise above $270 tag, although our current telecom participants who may have intends to not to choose 3G will have their finest to improve the bid worth; in serious situation $300 million level may perhaps be entered.

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The license for the 3G spectrum is announced to be held on March 29, 2012 reports Reuters. On the same subject PTA today conducted an Investors Conference in Islamabad attended by the Chairman PTA, Secretary Cabinet Division and Finance Minister.The tentative auction schedule and brochure have been uploaded on PTA website. You can also check them here:

• Auction Schedule
• Auction Brochure

Pakistan will hold an auction for its first licenses for third-generation (3G) mobile telecom services on March 29, an official at the country’s telecoms authority said on Tuesday.

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) Chairman Mohammed Yaseen said the base price for the auction would be $210 million.

“We’re expecting 10 to 15 potential investors in the initial bidding process,” Yaseen told Reuters.

He said the amount bidders would deposit with initial expressions of interest — to indicate the seriousness of a bid — would be $31.5 million and licence terms would be from eight to 15 years.

Pakistan had more than 111 million mobile phone users in October 2011, according to the PTA, equivalent to around 65 percent of all Pakistanis.

Pakistan’s existing operators include Mobilink, a unit of Egypt-based Orascom Telecom, Norway’s Telenor , Warid Telecom, a joint venture between Abu Dhabi Group and SingTel Group, China Mobile Communication Cooperation’s Zong, and Ufone, owned by the Emirates Telecommunication Corporation Group, Etisalat, according to the PTA website.

Yaseen said existing licence operators could start offering 3G services immediately after being awarded a licence, while new operators would be able to provide 3G services from March 2013.

Update:

According to the tentative auction schedule, some important dates for the 3G auction are:

March 2, 2012 – Pre-Bid Conference in Islamabad

March 9, 2012 – End Date for Submission of EOI along with Application

March 12, 2012 – Qualification of Bidder Before Auction

March 22, 2012 – Receipt of Earnest Money in PTA’s Bank Account

March 29, 2012 – 3G Spectrum Auction

Picture Courtesy: Parvez Iftikhar

The world of technology is growing faster than ever imagined. Not so long ago were the days when you had to choose between slowly surfing badly designed websites and making a phone call. These days, the demand for constant communication, access to news and online banking while on the move has pushed the evolution of the internet into the palm of our hands.

It is no longer a sight to behold if someone is walking down the street, streaming their Spotify playlists through their brand new Galaxy Tab, while reading the news and Tweeting about it at simultaneously. 3G (third generation) technology has allowed us to access and share information at the click of a button or a swipe of a finger.

It’s a hard concept to grasp that just ten years ago we would sit patiently for two whole minutes and wait for a webpage to load when now, we curse slow-loading mobile internet more than bad traffic on a Friday afternoon.

Where would we be without the technological advancement of 3G? Ten years in the past is our best guess. Without 3G, remote working would be completely out of the question and switching off between work and home was as easy as not having emails bombarding your mobile phone at all times of the night.

It’s not just the workaholic that has been affected by the advancement of internet on the move. Travellers benefit from mobile GPS systems, while families split between cities and countries can chat face-to-face while on the train.

If you find yourself bored whilst commuting to and from A to B, you have the option to download a book or some music, browse the App Store for another addictive game or Facebook the journey away.

The power of 3G, however, was greatly underestimated until recent events across the world. Student protests in London, uprisings in theMiddle East and help in finding loved ones after the Japanese tsunami are only a few examples of how 3G technology has helped organise major events.

Citizen journalism has also been on the rise since the ability to upload and share information has become so easy. The Hudson River emergency landing is probably the most famous example of an innocent bystander snapping a shot and sharing it with the world before the newspapers were able to get on the scene.

May 2011 saw the Twitter sphere explode with the news of Osama Bin Laden’s death before the Whitehouse had the chance to give an official statement and the Google Nexus One was revealed online before mainstream news, or even Google itself, got a look in.

The advancement of mobile internet can only get faster and more efficient as it grows in popularity across the world. Currently, 4G is being tested around the UK and promises ultra-broadband speeds and an alternative to home wifi connections. Watch this space – it may not be long before your whole online life goes mobile. The developed countries are talking about 4G and in Pakistan we are still waiting when 3G will come in Pakistan.

Do Check:  3G License Auction Will be in March 2012

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I own a Nokia E72 mobile phone. While I have not owned mobile phones longer than five years, I have in that time span been through two mobile brands. My very first mobile phone, gifted to me by father when I was early on in the University, properly convinced that I didn’t need a mobile phone, was a Sony Ericsson. It was a small mobile phone, the name of which escapes me now. I may still have it, somewhere, in some drawers, lost but not forgotten. I used it until it nearly died out. The engravings on the buttons grew muddled, colour on the handset faded out, the battery dead, replaced and dead again, etc. It would be safe to say, in hindsight, that I used it heavily.

My second mobile phone was another Sony Ericsson. It was the first mobile phone I bought. I was immensely excited the night I bought it, on way from work. The excitement of buying a new gadget is one that doesn’t ever diminish in its intensity, never goes away, no matter how many gadgets you buy. It is there right around the time you decide to buy a new gadget, and lasts well until after you’ve bought it. That was my second Sony Ericsson phone, and would be my last.

After I had made heavy use of it, I slowly moved away from it over to Nokia. I had a mammoth but reliable Nokia E61 lying around, which I was using for testing Symbian applications. Yes, this was roughly the time when I worked on Symbian application development. And that is all I am going to say of it.

My fourth and current mobile phone is a successor to E61: Nokia E72. I loved that phone when I bought it. I still love it in some ways. While E61 could be said to be too, E72 is what you would call a proper smart-phone. It features a lot of things that could help you do all sorts of things on the Internet, besides the usual functions of phone. It also has a full QWERTY keyboard. While I had owned an iPod Touch, I’d not been a big fan of touch screen and touch phones. I strongly believed that I could never be able to reliably use a phone with touch screen as the only form of input. This bias was in part due to my reliance on and affinity for physical QWERTY keyboards on phones.

Over the past couple of months, I was growing a little frustrated with my E72. While it worked as anyone would expect of it, I found that as far as applications that let me run wild on the Internet were concerned, it was severely limited. Sure, there were applications to do anything from using Facebook to Twitter to Foursquare. But I felt stifled. There were browsers but I didn’t feel the urge to browse anything on my mobile, unless it was an absolute emergency. I could post tweets on Twitter, but I didn’t enjoy interacting with others’ tweets. The same could be said of my experiences with Facebook (as far as I can tell, there is no native, official application for Facebook from Facebook for Symbian S60) or Foursquare applications. It just wasn’t fun, or even comfortable.

So for the past couple of months, I had been strictly debating getting an iPhone. iPhone 4S was out by then and it made no sense to get anything below that model. Some friends suggested time and again to go for the iPad instead. Where I was almost convinced that iPhone 4S would be my fifth phone, the recommendations for iPad threw my mind back in a state of confusion. Naturally, I compared the pros and contrasted the cons of both devices. Of course, one is a phone, the other a tablet, but when I compared the iPhone to the iPad, I actually compared it with iPad and my E72. That is, if I were to get an iPad, I would continue to use my E72 for the phone needs. There was a big difference in price as well, with a factory unlocked iPhone 4S coming at an exorbitant 67k PKR locally, while an iPad2 with WiFi cost only 48k PKR.

I still remember clearly the night I was at the club on the courts, playing tennis with my partner. He had finally bought the iPhone 4 a day before, after having looked for the white one for under a week. That night, I came home, and finally made up my mind.

The next afternoon, I was at the Apple Store I regularly buy from, purchasing an iPad2 WiFi with 16GB disk space. I had decided it. As I would find out, it was one of the best decisions I had made in my life in a while.

Those familiar with the different iPad2 models available will know that there’s a WiFi + 3G one available. Apart from having to pay under 10k PKR more, the main reason why I decided against getting the 3G model was the unavailability of 3G in the country. I know that you don’t necessarily have to have 3G to be able to use the connection, because any type of data-plan from your provider, such as GPRS or EDGE, will work. However, as I will explain, iPad is a content consumption device. When I say that it is a content consumption device, I mean it in a massive way. It has been designed for consuming a lot of content, including in the form of video, audio, and text. When I decided to buy it, I imagined myself using the iPad like I do my laptop. And I can’t ever imagine using my laptop over EDGE/GPRS in a way that satisfies me. Similarly, I didn’t think the iPad would shine on an EDGE/GPRS connection.

In the next post, I will explain exactly how the arrival of iPad has changed my life, how it has affected it, how I use it, where and when I use it. I will also list down the wonderful apps I use frequently, and make an argument for iPad being an awesome device for reading books/content in particular.

IVIO Icon Pro by PTCL is an Android smart phone enabled with 3G. Two Packages of IVIO Icon Pro are available namely Evo Wind and Evo Wings. For Rs.16 999, get the smart phone with 5 GB data for 3 months

Do you have an old mobile phone, like the Nokia 1100, that has no browser and can do little more than make phone calls? Or are you stuck in some remote place where there’s no Internet or no other form of data (EGDE/GPRS/3G) connectivity is available?

Not a problem. You can still use your Facebook account in India by dialing *325# (or *fbk#) from your mobile phone – this service requires no data plan or Internet and it will even work on phones of the Stone Age. Here’s a quick tour:

Use Facebook without the Data Plan

Facebook India has partnered with Fonetwish to bring Facebook on every mobile phone without requiring any apps or even the Internet.

You dial the *325# number, then enter your Facebook username and password and you are in. You can then send number based commands to access various features of Facebook, chat with friends who are online, add new people to your friends list, and more.

I played with the service for some time and it was a nice experience overall. If there were a Unix-like shell interface for Facebook, it would be much similar. Fonetwish says that this service is currently available for Airtel, Aircel, Idea and Tata Docomo users in India.

It may be too much work to read your Facebook news feed stories one by one but this is a good option to quickly update your Facebook status or for chatting with friends who are online. The price is reasonable too – you just have pay a subscription fee of 1.00 per day for unlimited usage.

Related: If you have an old mobile phone, you can search Google by SMS without requiring a data plan.

This story, Access Facebook on any Mobile Without the Internet, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 12/01/2012 under Facebook, India.

HTC Radar is the latest Windows Phone device released by HTC and recently launched by Mobilink; it runs the latest version of Windows Phone OS available, Mango. Lets take a look on it before proceeding with the review:

HTC radar has a very corporate touch to it while at the same time also being remarkably user friendly for any purpose. It has a metal body which gives a nice elegant feel to the fingers. Unlike some other phones, the metal feel to it does not affect the phones weight at all. At 137g it is very light and easy to handle at all times. The metal feel on Radar also gives a good grip when held in hands.

Next thing to consider is its size. With dimensions of (120.5mm x 61.5mm x 10.9mm) it looks really classy and it is very easy to get a grip on. It’s not that long and it’s not thick at all hence making it a very fun phone to deal with because it also has a little bend on the bottom side of it where you can see the compulsory 3 Window phone buttons.

At the back we can see the 5MP camera and the LED flash light along with the speaker that gives crystal clear sound. On the top there is a headphone jack along with the power button too. There are Volume and camera buttons on the right, microUSB/ charging slot on the left of the phone. Unlike many other HTC phones, HTC radar has no option of adding a memory card because there is inbuilt 8GB memory inside the phone.

All in all, this looks to be a very good phone and even though it might not attract people who want their interests in one screen (because it is a Windows phone) this is basically more of a corporate phone. It surely oozes class and user friendliness and for people who would like to buy it. I give it a 7/10. The only drawbacks are for those who don’t like Windows phones. It is like every HTC phone in the sense that it is extremely fast and has a great touch that responds well to every need of yours.

Design and Build

The HTC Radar comes with traditional HTC unibody, its metallic body with smooth plastic at bottom and top of its back makes it look elegant and smart. It has 3.8 inches S-LCD 480×800 pixel (WVGA) capacitive touch screen with nice sunlight legibility and reasonably bright colors but comparatively low pixel density i.e. (~246 PPI). It has a secondary VGA camera on its face placed above its touch screen and 5MP camera is at its back with LED flash, speaker is next to camera. The 3 traditional windows phone capacitive keys i.e. Back, Home and Search are well spaced and place at bottom. At right side of HTC Radar there is a volume control and camera button, camera can be directly activated from locked screen by long pressing camera button. On left side microUSB is found which may create problem for left handed people using the phone while charging. 3.5mm jack is on top with power button. Its bottom has a removable cover which allows inserting only SIM card, the memory card slot is missing as 8GB internal memory is available. The battery is not user-replaceable, which we see as a disadvantage but having a non-replaceable battery adds to the slimness of the phone. It has a powerful 1GHz Scorpion processor and Adreno 205 GPU.

The Windows Phone tastes Mango

The HTC Radar comes with Microsoft Windows Phone 7.5 (mango) operating system with HTC green tiles and black background. Its user interface is smooth with live tiles which display information, different shortcuts and allow direct access to selected softwares, these tiles can be easily edited and personalized. The way of information displayed on the tiles is improved, you can view social network update of you friends on a Group tile, picture tile displays animated slideshow of pictures and you can search applications by just typing their name in application list. The lock screen unlocks by swipe and its background can be easily changed.

Windows Phone till now do not allows you to manage your files & folders and even do not allow transferring them via blue tooth, the app store is smaller than android app store which makes less applications available to users. You can use feature of multitasking which allow you to access last used 5 to 6 apps but the older apps need to be re-launched for use, you can turn off this function from settings to save battery.

Windows Phone Mango update supports voice recognition which enables the users to dictate a text message or to listen any received message and you can even instruct the mobile to initiate a search in search engine by voice command.

The Mango update gives a great social networking experience; it provides better and faster synchronization. Call, text messages, email, Facebook wall, and Twitter mentions all appear when you open a contact. You can also get access to online pictures and galleries from social networks easily. You can make contact groups and pin then on your home screen as a live tile. You can pool your e-mail from your all e-mail accounts in your Window phone, what you need to do is to connect all your accounts to you HCT Radar.

Microsoft Office Support

As HTC Radar is a windows phone Microsoft office integration is a key function of this smart phone. The Mango update enables the users to sync documents between PC and windows phone using SkyDrive which provides 25GB free storage capacity. The main Office hub has the categories i.e. Documents, Location and Notes. With Microsoft office it is easier to create, edit and share several important documents but you can’t share them via Bluetooth or by e-mail editor, documents can only be shared using the Office hub. OneNote is a useful and comprehensive note taking tool which allows to perform several useful tasks, it can be used as a to-do list and you can pin it on the main screen.

To give a HTC touch The HTC Radar has some interesting HTC apps like Notes, Lists, Calculator, Converter etc .

Media and Connectivity

The Xbox Live is a gaming hub, it has many feature similar to x box. The spot light feature enables you to see the requests and game invites from your friends. Xbox live do not support all the games, there is a separate section for the games supported by the Xbox Live. HTC Radar’s 1GHz processor is powerful enough to play high quality graphic games like Need for Speed, Kinectimals and Angry birds.

In the windows phone Mango update there’s a new People tab which helps to browse pictures of your contacts and groups in the Picture hub. Previously last viewed picture automatically appeared at the background of the hub, now u can set a single picture or a set of pictures to be used as background picture which give more personalized look to the Picture hub. In new update picture editing apps are synchronized with the Picture hub which enables to edit and to add effects to the pictures direct from the Picture hub. You can share videos and pictures via e-mail, messaging, Facebook or Sky Drive. The HTC Radar does not support DivX or XviD video formats. Even a single video, song, radio channel can be pinned as a live tile on home screen.

The HTC Radar’s 5MP autofocus camera has a wide-angle lens which helps to capture wider images and back-side illuminated sensor which enhances camera performance in dim light. The secondary front camera is VGA which is placed above the touch screen for video chat. The camera app has several settings to create effects on a picture. Amazingly the camera can be directly accessed from the lock screen by long pressing the thin camera key. Its video results were not at all impressive in terms of colours, smoothness, details and overall quality. Its camera performance is not 2x better than HTC HD7 (as asserted by officials in the HTC Radar meet up), lets see a few images taken fom HTC Radar and HTC HD7 for comparison:

Pics taken from Radar:

Pics taken from HD7:

The HTC Radar supports quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and dual-band 3G with HSPA. It has standard Wi-Fi (with hotspot) and Bluetooth connectivity, but Bluetooth is with limited use as you can’t transfer files. The only ways to transfer files is by connecting to PC using Zune app or to sync with SkyDrive. The latest version of Internet Explorer is 7.5 which is available in HTC Radar.

The Bing search helps to search you market apps and other stuff, now it can perform two new functions i.e. it can work as bar code reader and song recognizer which were previously performed by different apps. The Bing map is a useful app which offers many helpful functions to help in navigation but for Pakistan its map support is extremely poor

Calling and Texting

The phonebook is now replaced by People hub and instead of contacts term Profiles is used in WP 7.5. The profile contains all updates and data from all social networks and email addresses of that contact. Contacts are arranged alphabetically and you can pick contacts by searching them by first alphabet of their name, a list of all profiles with names starting with the selected alphabet will appear.

The HTC Radar has an excellent and loud call quality and a good call reception. The live tile and the lock screen displays only the number of miss calls, the details off calls can be viewed in call history. It has a voice dialing option but it cannot differentiate between two people with same names but different sir names. You can download ringtones from market but unfortunately you can’t set a song or ring tone from your audio collection. It has good quality loud speaker with fairly high volume.

The HTC Radar provides you with a wonderful messaging experience. There are material changes in the messaging in the latest Mango update. Threads of text messaging, Facebook messaging and (WLM) Windows LiveMmessenger are combined. Messaging is now divided in two heads i.e. threads (offline) and online (friend available online) which makse messaging and online chatting easier. You can forward, edit, copy and paste the messages, you can’t send any attachment in Facebook chat in messaging, for this purpose MMS is used. The HTC Radar uses the standard Windows Phone QWERTY key board which we found comfortable to use, it has sound feedback but no haptic vibration feedback.

Final Words

HTC Radar is priced reasonably at Rs. 38,000 in Pakistan. So if you are looking for a sleek UI with blazing fast speed the WP Mango powered HTC Radar is one of the best options around. Here are some pros and cons

Pros

• Facebook integration at its best
• 512 MB RAM
• 3.5mm audio jack
• Microsoft Office Editor
• Sync with Sky Drive
• Exclusive HTC apps
• Wi-Fi b/ g/ n

Cons

• No mass storage/ data transfer mode
• Files can only be transferred to PC via Zune
• Documents cant be synced between PC and Phone via Zune
• No file manager
• No Bluetooth file transfer
• Manual IP settings for Wi-Fi not possible
• No Skype support
• Non user replaceable battery

The phrase satellite Internet often conjures images of secret messages being sent and received from within remote military bunkers, an expensive and unobtainable technology used only by the armed forces.

In truth, whilst the military does indeed make use of it, satellite Internet is far from difficult to obtain and is useful for a lot more than military operations, and as such it’s use is becoming much more common place in journalism.

There are many reasons for this, satellite Internet is fast, on par with the average high speed broadband, reliable (satellites have a tendency to remain in the sky) and it’s costs are comparable to that of a regular Internet connection through an I.S.P.

Yet the most alluring concept is that of true portability, without any downsides found in other methods of attaining a portable Internet connection such as a 3G dongle. There is no hunting for a signal and then crawling along at slow speeds when all that can be found is a sliver of 3G reception, you just set up and go. The connection comes from the sky instead of underground cables and so there is no need for a supporting infrastructure.

Do Check: Satellite Internet is a Fast and Affordable

Now what does this have to do with journalism you ask? Well, consider the ongoing unrest in Libya and Egypt. Think about all of those videos and reports that have appeared on the Internet despite the seemingly insurmountable obstacle of the country having been cut from the Internet. How did they get there? Were they recorded and then smuggled across the border? Snuck out through a series of underground tunnels? No. The answer is, for the most part, satellite Internet. Satellite Internet allows coverage of events to be seen across the world as they occur and, short of bringing down the satellite itself, there is no way to stop it.

Now that is all very well for large, established stories and events where crews of reporters and journalists can arrive on scene with relative ease, but it is when a story is just breaking or is otherwise inaccessible to traditional methods of journalism  that we see how satellite Internet has helped in the field of social journalism.

A few years ago social journalism was all but unheard of, then the advent of sites such as twitter helped it to gain some momentum, but it wasn’t until satellite internet connections became readily available that social journalism really came into it’s own.

Now citizens themselves can report on events, even if there is a lack of traditional internet coverage and in a rising number of cases these ‘citizen journalists’ can be the only source of information during the initial hours of an event. Satellite Internet connections help to provide an insight into events that would otherwise never be told.

Satellite Internet is the next step for both journalism and it’s citizen based counterpart, allowing events to be reported as and when they happen, wherever they occur.

Dave Sanchez runs Satellite ISP comparison site Tooway Compare. He is already aware that Satellite Internet is in many ways superior to it’s cable counterpart and is accessible from anywhere in the world. Not only does he want you to know this, but he wants you to get the best deal if you choose a Satellite connection too!

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