PTA to Improve Customers’ Protections from Obnoxious Calls and Spam SMSes: ProPakistani

PTA to Improve Customers’ Protections from Obnoxious Calls and Spam SMSes
Wateen Signs $7.9 Million Deal with Roshan Telecom
PTA Launches SMS Based QoS Survey for Celcos
Telenor Signs up Sybrid as Contact Center Outsourcing Partner
Breaking: PTA Decides to Ban Explicit Websites

PTA to Improve Customers’ Protections from Obnoxious Calls and Spam SMSes

Posted: 19 Oct 2011 09:16 PM PDT

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has decided to further improve its protection policy for mobile/telephony users with the amendment of its regulations for telecom operators and their services that may cause inconvenience to subscribers.

Authority has said that The subscription of the repeated fraudulent call/SMS originator should be terminated along with the IMEI number of the originating handset within in 24 hours of the receipt of the complaint.

PTA proposed amendments in "Protection of Spam, unsolicited, fraudulent and obnoxious communication 2009", regulations.

If the originator is repeatedly involved in obnoxious communication even after issuance of warning, the operator shall suspend the telephone subscription of the originator within 24 hours of the receipt of the complaint and operators are asked to record any such subscriptions in the black list along with complete user antecedent.

Telecom operators shall maintain the "Grey and black list" of subscribers involved in obnoxious communication along with complete user antecedents.

The grey list shall comprise of telephone subscriptions along with complete user antecedents who have been issued a warning on account of making obnoxious communication.

The Black list shall comprise of telephone subscriptions along with complete user antecedents who are repeatedly found to be involved in obnoxious activity after issuance of warning and whose telephone subscription has been suspended on account of indulging in obnoxious activity.

Subscriptions placed in the Blacklist of obnoxious communication shall only be restored/ recycled after approval of the PTA and subject to a written undertaking by the originator not to indulge in obnoxious communication again.

Provided that in the case of more than one instance of indulging in obnoxious activity after the termination of subscription, the said user antecedents shall be placed in the list of blacklisted user antecedents and shall not be eligible for any other telecom service from any operator.

User antecedents placed in the black list as well as black listed user antecedents shall be posted on the website of the Operator.

The subscriptions involved in generation of spamming from a telecom network shall be suspended by the concerned operator however it shall be restored only after approval of the authority subject to a written undertaking by the originator not to indulge in spamming again.

All operators shall maintain a black list of subscribers involved in generation of spamming and whose subscriptions have been suspended on account of involvement in spamming activity. User antecedents placed in the black list shall be posted on the website of the operator.

Operators shall ensure the implementation of the standard operating procedures with an effective technical measures are for controlling fraudulent and obnoxious calls, spamming SMSes on their respective networks.

All operators shall provide complete information regarding the particulars telemarketers, content service providers.

Do not Call Register contains complaints on spamming, fraudulent, unsolicited and obnoxious communication shall be provided to authority on demand, PTA amended draft stated.

You can view the complete draft for amendments by clicking this link (PDF File – 220 KB)

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Wateen Signs $7.9 Million Deal with Roshan Telecom

Posted: 19 Oct 2011 09:15 PM PDT

Wateen Telecom has announced a contract worth $7.9 million that it signed with Roshan Telecom for the provision of VSAT services in Afghanistan for the next two years.

This deal will not only help serve the day to day communications needs of millions of Afghans in remote areas of the country but will also spur the development of local and satellite based communications networks in Afghanistan.

Wateen began exploring the Afghan VSAT market in 2009, when Roshan telecom required a partner to help bring its VSAT services to remote areas of Afghanistan and provide GSM backhauling. The deployment and development of if this network allowed Roshan to rapidly deploy network in remote areas. After providing unparalleled service for 2 years Wateen was asked to renew its contract, which it did with the best interests of its partner and the afghan people in mind.

Wateen's vision of bringing change through the internet is not limited to Pakistan. As a carrier's carrier, Wateen hopes to help make Pakistan a hub for regional communications and to bring services and mechanisms for data transfer that reduce costs and lag and provide reliable communications in any environment or time.

Naeem Zimindar, Wateen CEO adds

"This deal demonstrates again the long term vision that Wateen has for its participation in the region is and the confidence it has in Pakistan and its neighbours for the years to come.

We are confident in the long term prospects that Afghanistan possesses and the ability of the Afghan people to move forward; like Pakistan, Afghanistan is also going through a difficult period, but we at Wateen believe that prospects for the future look bright as long as we work together and invest ourselves in the future of our countries and the region."

PTA Launches SMS Based QoS Survey for Celcos

Posted: 19 Oct 2011 09:12 PM PDT

Read this post in Urdu

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has recently launched "SMS based consumer perception survey system 8899" aiming to find consumers perception about performance of their respective cellular mobile operator.

PTA has made special arrangements to make it free of cost service to encourage maximum participation from the general public. It is a flexible system which sends SMS to mobile phone users inviting them to participate in the survey by sending response through SMS ranging from 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest) as per his/her perception.

Mobile phone users can also participate directly by sending SMS to short code '8899' about his/her perception for the quality of service of their respective mobile phone service provider.

PTA will consolidate the results to know the consumer's perception about their service providers to further enhance the quality of mobile phone service in the country. This survey is in addition to regular technical quality of service surveys conducted by PTA to ensure the enhancement in the quality of telecom services in Pakistan.

PTA has always been proactive to launch services that can be extremely helpful in further improving the quality of mobile services in Pakistan; Launch of 8899 is another fruitful initiative in this regard.

PTA has received good response in this regard however customers are requested to follow and use this short code to express their opinions regarding their satisfactory level with their respective telecom operators. The statistics based on this survey will be finalized on Friday, 21^st October 2011.

Telenor Signs up Sybrid as Contact Center Outsourcing Partner

Posted: 19 Oct 2011 09:04 PM PDT

Telenor Pakistan has signed an agreement according to which it will outsource part of its customer services operations to Sybrid.

For the purpose, Sybrid will establish a contact center in Islamabad which will initially comprise 100 customer relations officers but with the capacity to move to 500 depending on business needs.

The agreement was signed by Christian Albech, CEO Telenor Pakistan and Iqbal Ali Lakhani, Chairman Lakson Group & CEO Sybrid at a local hotel today.

Lakson Group has also agreed to port-in to Telenor Pakistan 800 of its postpaid business connections. In addition, Lakson Group will look at the possibility of opening Easypaisa accounts for salary disbursals to 10,000 of its factory workers spread across 15 group companies.

Christian Albech, CEO Telenor Pakistan speaking about the mutually beneficial partnership said:

"Telenor Pakistan is strongly focused on enhancing its customer services. So we are delighted to be partnering with Sybrid, a credible name in Pakistan's contact center industry, to be able to benefit from their expertise and serve our customers even better.

We hope that our partnership will result in the creation of around 500 jobs in one year. In addition, the prospect of Sybrid considering using Easypaisa for disbursal of salaries to its employees is also an exciting development, one which we hope will lead to a positive take up."

Iqbal Ali Lakhani, Chairman Lakson Group & CEO Sybrid in his comments said:

"Sybrid intends to provide Telenor Pakistan a holistic customer services package. Both Telenor Pakistan and Sybrid are customer centric organizations so it is only natural for us to enter into a strategic partnership.

Sybrid’s engagement with Telenor Pakistan reinforces our position as a long-term strategic outsourced partner that is equipped to enhance an organization's service processes and technical capabilities thereby providing it with cost and efficiency advantages."

Breaking: PTA Decides to Ban Explicit Websites

Posted: 19 Oct 2011 06:25 PM PDT

Read this post in Urdu

We have learned through reliable sources that PTA has decided to ban explicit websites. This information that we have got is of preliminary nature, however officials at PTA confirmed us of decision taken by the authority.

We are yet to ascertain the mechanism and procedures that PTA will adopt for the ban, but it is anticipated that PTA will maintain a list of blacklisted websites based on user input.

This decision is apparently due to increased social and moral pressure that PTA has gone through in the recent months. This is a vital decision taken by the authority that will be welcomed by the parents. Reaction from youth can be different.

This is a developing story, and we will update it as we get more information.

Update:

We are told by PTA officials that a list of 150,000 websites has been sent to ISPs to get them blocked. The process will take 8 to 10 working days and then these 150,000 will be blocked in Pakistan. PTA is planning to keep updating the list, through user input and self determination.

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Thursday, October 20, 2011