E-Panorama

(For PC World Pakistan)

Pakistan’s 3G Policy Gets in Principle Nod

After a long wait, the Prime Minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, has approved the 3G licensing policy and has directed the Cabinet Committee (CC) to bring it before the Cabinet for final approval. The approval was given during the meeting on 3G and Grey Traffic and Additional Spectrum auction for Wireless Local Loop. New international players together with existing players are invited in the auction. Moreover, Instaphone is also invited being the sixth of the existing licensee in the country and not a new licensee. It was decided that three blocks of 10 MHz (megahertz) each out of available 3G spectrums would be immediately offered for auction allowing existing operators to take part as well. New players will also be invited provided that the new player is successful in bid. Then, they would be eligible to start operation only after March 2013 when moratorium on new licensing would expire. It was also decided that more 3/4 G spectrums would be made available and offered for auction with provided that winners of such auction will receive amended licenses and allocated frequencies by March 2013.

Pakistan Wins 2 Gold and 5 Silver Awards at APICTA 2011

Pakistan ICT companies have been declared winner for seven categories in Asia Pacific ICT Alliance (APICTA) Awards held in Pattaya, Thailand. According to Telecom Recorder, Pakistan’s team comprised of 18 products competing with 162 different products from the Asia Pacific region. The Center for Advanced Research in Engineering (CARE) won the gold in e-Health and 3 silvers in Communication, Security and E-Government categories. Lumensoft Technologies won the other gold in the e-Logistics category. Infotech Group took the silver in the Financial Apps category while Engro-Orix took it in the E-Inclusion & E-Community category. Pakistan was amongst the leaders at the APICTA event and left behind countries like Hong Kong, Australia and Malaysia.

Wateen Telecom Reboots

Wateen Telecom has re-launched its corporate identity with new logo, new packages and new management. The post has appeared on a number of news websites. The philosophy behind the new visual identity represents “freedom”, based on the unlimited possibilities offered by Wateen for its customers. The turn-around is planned on building a dynamic and customer focused organization.  The strategy focuses on investing in upgrading the network and re-engineering the systems and processes to deliver outstanding services. Wateen is aiming to become Pakistan’s largest and most trusted name in converged communications. It has planned to provide the most advanced triple-play services in telephony, Internet and Cable TV, as well as networking and data management. For this purpose, the company has already started partnering with some of Pakistan’s leading institutions to expand its network.

Pakistani Scientist Wins WTN Award

Athar Osama has won a World Technology Network award for his outstanding contribution in the education of science and technology through his weekly newsletter Muslim-Science.Com. The WTN awards are widely seen as “Oscars of Science and Technology.” According to a report on Dawn, he is the first Pakistani to be declared as WTN winner as of Publisher/Editor/Columnist for the category of Media and Communication. He has also bee elected as a fellow of the WTN. The Pakistani scientist has been writing extensively on important science and innovation policy themes since 1992. He began to write for leading English newspapers initially in Pakistan, but later on, he started writing in international general interest journals and online too.

Pakistan IT Exports Up 32.6% in Q1 FY 2012

According to ProPakistani.pk, Pakistan’s exports of IT and IT-enabled services have shown an impressive growth of 32.6% in first quarter of 2011-2012. SBP statistics showed that the IT and ITES exports reached US $ 61 million in Jul-Sep 2011 as compared to US $ 45 million exports recorded in 2010’s same period. Pakistan exports software based IT solutions, financial and mobile applications, BPOs services and infrastructure development support services to different countries. The industry experts said that the growth is likely to recover its 50 percent benchmark by next year with the recovery of global economies of USA and EU. Pakistan’s ICT companies have sought potential in developing markets of African countries to pace up the growth of its overseas businesses with handsome revenues.

Pakistani Firm To Add Value To India’s Low-cost Aakaash Tablet

According to various new sources, it has been confirmed that Pepper.pk will develop apps to support the Indian made low cost Aakash tablet. Aakash tablet was launched by India with the aim of promoting and strengthening regional cooperation in South Asia. Peppr.pk is a mobile applications subsidiary of the Pakistani company Five River Technologies. The Pakistani firm’s portfolio of applications includes three world No. 1 titles including the four-time AppWorld No. 1 app, Photo Editor. Their apps are available across all major mobile platforms including iPhone/iPad, BlackBerry phones and BlackBerry PlayBook, Windows Phone 7, Android and Nokia. The company would start customizing relevant apps from its current 150 offerings for the Aakash as soon as it becomes commercially available in November.

SMS Filters – PTA To Ban Certain Words

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has issued a letter whereby it is considering banning more than 1500 words both in English and Urdu. It has marked them as obscene words and told carriers they have seven days to block the words on their networks. The authority (PTA) considers this as a step to control spam under the “Protection from Spam, Unsolicited, Fraudulent and Obnoxious Communication Regulations, 2009″. The list of English words includes more than 1,000 words while the Urdu list contains over 550 words. The lists do contain many offensive words but it also has some words and terms that are used by particular minority groups, common words from the English language and rap group. Some of them are Tongue, Deeper, Taxi and most surprisingly “Jesus Christ”.

PTA Website Attacked

A number of online resources have reported that the PTA website has been hacked by someone named Zombie_KSA. Zombie_KSA hacked the PTA website and told PTA to block or ban the websites with explicit material. It appears that the hacker was the same who hacked the Supreme Court’s website. The same message was given to the Chief Justice of Pakistan when the Supreme Courts website was hacked. Resources say that earlier a letter was written by a 9^th grader to PTA, Minister of IT and Chief Justice of Pakistan to ban such sites. As a result, a number sites containing explicit material have been blocked by the authority.