PTA Blocks Ahmaddiya Controlled Religious Website: ProPakistani

PTA Blocks Ahmaddiya Controlled Religious Website
Nexus 7 Takes on Its Competitors in Comparison Table
Pre-emptive Care and Targeted Services Must Be Prioritized to Reduce Churn in Telecom: Survey
Ufone Becomes the Only Telco to Follow ISO 9001:2008
Seminar on Betterment of Agriculture Through Telecommunication Held
Ufone Offers 100,000 Saudi Riyals and Umrah Packages

PTA Blocks Ahmaddiya Controlled Religious Website

Posted: 04 Jul 2012 01:35 PM PDT

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority(PTA) that is known for blocking several sites with inappropriate content has come into action ones again.

This time, it has blocked a site by the name of alislam.org. The site was controlled by people of the Islami Ahmaddiya Muslim community. According to reports we are getting so far, the site was accused for blasphemy against the Holy Prophet (P.B.U.H).

The decision to block the site was announced today. On opening the website, a message appears telling the user of the blockade along with an email address for complaining.

Currently, I can't see any chances of the removal of blockade of this site in the near future but who knows what will happen especially after Farahnaz Isphahani (former member of the national assembly) tweeted following:

"Have taken up issue of blocking Ahmadiyya website with concerned officials in Pakistan."

Of course banning of websites isn't new in Pakistan because we've already seen a ban on thousands of websites including Twitter which was banned only sometime ago.

Just to add (to avoid any religious fight in comments) the process for deciding the ban on a website should be made more transparent by communicating the general public about the decision. If a website/URL is blasphemous in nature, sure – go ahead and block it. But the whole process needs plenty of refinement, such as:

PTA should publish the list of blocked websites, detailing if block is temporary or permanent
PTA should also specify the reasons for blocking a website
Mechanism should be devised for the public for reconsideration/review of PTA's decision of blocking any website
Similarly, PTA should also devise a way for public to report inappropriate websites – that they think should be blocked.

We are likely to see outrage on this decision of PTA, which could be avoided if authority had detailed down the reasons for ban, any particular pages that were blasphemous or any content it had deemed inappropriate.

Nexus 7 Takes on Its Competitors in Comparison Table

Posted: 03 Jul 2012 09:15 PM PDT

Read this post in Urdu

The new Nexus 7 Tablet has got some killer hardware coupled with a respectable software, i.e. Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, which is already receiving positive reviews.

While its main competitors will be either Amazon Kindle Fire or Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0, we think that it has enough skills to take on even the best in tablet business.

Does it succeed? let's find out:

	Google Nexus 7	Kindle Fire	iPad 3	Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0*	Asus Transformer Prime
Weight	340g	413g	652g	344g	586g
Thickness	10.5mm	11.4mm	9.4mm	10.5mm	8.3mm
Operating System	Android 4.1 Jelly Bean	Android 2.3 Gingerbread customized	iOS 5.1	Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich	Android 3.2, upgradeable to 4.0
Display size	7 inch	7 inch	10.1 inch	7 inch	10.1 inch
Resolution	800 x 1280	600 x 1024	1536 x 2048	600 x 1024	1280 x 800
Memory	8/16Gb	8Gb	16/32/64Gb	8/16/32Gb	32/64Gb
Card slot	No	No	No	Yes upto 64Gb	Yes upto 32Gb
Processor	1.3Ghz quad-core	1Ghz dual-core	1Ghz dual-core	1Ghz dual-core	1.3Ghz quad-core
RAM	1Gb	512Mb	1Gb	1Gb	1Gb
Sensors	Accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass	Accelerometer	Accelerometer, gyro, compass	Accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass	Accelerometer,gyro, compass
Camera	No	No	5mp, 1080p Full HD video	3mp, 720p HD video	8mp, 1080p Full HD video
Front-facing camera	1.2 mp, 720p HD	No	VGA	VGA	1.2mp
Price in PKR	25-30K	25-30K	49,990	31,990	57,990

*some versions of this tablet support voice and video calls as well

I'll mention it again that Ipad 3 and Transformer Prime aren't Google Nexus 7's main competitors, but still thanks to its great hardware, it can compete with those too in some, if not all categories.

Pre-emptive Care and Targeted Services Must Be Prioritized to Reduce Churn in Telecom: Survey

Posted: 03 Jul 2012 09:10 PM PDT

A poll conducted by Comptel Corporation at the annual Comptel User Group revealed that the vast majority of telecommunications industry executives consider the ability to anticipate subscribers' needs and proactively and personally interact with users is critical for effectively managing the customer experience.

Paralleling findings from consumer research conducted earlier this year, the survey found that two-thirds (67%) of telecom industry high-ups believe a lack of consistent quality, such as dropped calls, low bandwidth and the slow loading of files, and poor customer service are the biggest contributors to customer churn.

Nearly half (46%), however, believe more targeted offerings based around individual usage patterns, in combination with personalized apologies, discounted upgrade opportunities or other special offers following a service issue, will help mitigate turnover.

The majority of telecommunications industry executives (55%) cited analytics as necessary to deliver on this and capitalize on business opportunities. Three out of four attendees reported leveraging analytics daily, weekly or monthly for customer retention, more targeted marketing or other performance improvements.

Further, almost all survey participants noted that, when it comes to effective customer engagement, real-time capabilities to predict subscriber behaviors and understand the context of each customer interaction are essential.

Other Key Findings

Thirty-eight percent indicated that their marketing activities and network fulfillment and delivery were not closely aligned. Communication service providers, however, would reap benefits—such as reduced costs and improved customer interactions—from bridging the service order capture and service delivery process.

Opinions were split nearly evenly on whether contextual intelligence is best suited for monetization via up-selling, cross-selling, personalized advertising and new customer acquisitions; churn prevention via multi-SIM prediction, rotational churn identification and churn location; dynamic profiling and segmentation via usage, interests, location, propensity to churn and influence; and advanced offer management to track or manage successful promotions and popular service bundles.

Following are the screens of Comptel Survey results:

Ufone Becomes the Only Telco to Follow ISO 9001:2008

Posted: 03 Jul 2012 09:09 PM PDT

In the quest for excellence in the field of Quality Assurance, Ufone has formed a Quality Management System (QMS) within its Technical Department; the structure of which is based on ISO 9001:2008 standards.

The scope of ISO 9001:2008 covers services for developing, operating and maintaining GSM Cellular Mobile Network. It effectively helps companies gauge their quality management system performance at any point in time and identifies opportunities for further improvement.

Ufone is currently the only GSM cellular service provider in Pakistan which maintains an ISO 9001:2008 certified Technical Department. The ISO 9001:2008 standards will contribute towards enhancing user perception and customer experience.

The ISO 9001:2008 certification Audit was conducted by a renowned Norwegian based company called Det Norske Veritas (DNV) which offers business assurance management system certification services. While headquartered in Oslo, Norway and established in 1867, DNV has more than 300 offices in 100 countries. DNV provides certification, assessment and training services to assure the performance of customers' products, processes and organizations across a wide variety of industries globally. DNV has issued more than 70,000 ISO certificates worldwide and more than 500 ISO certificates within various sectors of Pakistan.

On the achievement, Abdul Aziz President & CEO Ufone expressed his delight by praising the efforts, dedication and hard work of his team. He further said that with the help of a strong framework Ufone will now be able to build a solid foundation for long term quality vision. He also said that the whole purpose of acquiring the certification is to challenge the traditional way of doing business and challenge our employees to do better resulting in enhanced customer satisfaction. With another 'first', Ufone has once again proved its aim to be the most innovative and customer friendly cellular service provider in the country. After all, It's all about U.

Seminar on Betterment of Agriculture Through Telecommunication Held

Posted: 03 Jul 2012 09:08 PM PDT

Read this post in Urdu

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) organized a workshop on "What Can Telecommunications Do for Agriculture" at Serena Hotel, Islamabad yesterday. The event was organized in collaboration with LIRNEasia, a regional ICT Policy Think Tank, based in Sri Lanka.

The main theme of this joint initiative of PTA and LIRNEasia was to share international experiences and research with Pakistan, and to learn from successful telecom-agriculture models and improving agriculture productivity through increased usage of ICT.

The event was well attended by representatives from agriculture organizations, international experts, agriculture consultants, policy makers, government officials, farmers associations, telecom operators, value added service providers, agriculture credit departments and donor agencies including World Bank, ADB, USAID, DFID working in the agriculture sector.

In his opening remarks, Dr. Mohammed Yaseen, Chairman PTA said that Agriculture is the backbone of Pakistan's economy as it accounts for 21% of national income, employs 45% of the country's total workforce and provides livelihood to 60% of our rural community. He said that farmer's access to relevant information and adoption of ICT and telecom value added services by rural community can bring revolution in the agriculture production.

Similarly, Pakistan telecom sector is considered as an exemplary growth model around the globe and our agriculture sector can also be a model by adopting telecom and getting its benefits. Today, we have total teledensity of more than 72% with 119.9 million mobile subscribers.

The Chairman said that after success in e-commerce and Branchless Banking initiatives, PTA is now encouraging the development of local content based mobile/ICT applications and willing to extend all sort of support to help the farmers through the provision of reliable and timely information, local content based applications, automation of agriculture production processes using specialised applications of mobile phones and ICT. The Chairman also thanked LIRNEasia for collaborating with PTA on this important aspect of Pakistan's economy.

Dr. Rohan Samarjiva, CEO & Chair LIRNEasia presented a research carried out by the organization on the subject how the underprivileged make use of ICTs and findings from worldwide studies of Teleuse at the bottom of the pyramid. He recommended that mobiles are the pre-eminent communication technology among the poor, among smallholders and those who interact with them. Yet, the use of mobiles for livelihood-related purposes is moderate in agriculture sector. He said that more mobile-based applications are needed for better diffusion of telecom in agriculture.

Dr. Kevin Callagher, representative of Food and Agriculture (FAO) of the UN stressed on the need for ICT access for emergency and disaster management, use of interactive media, automated data collection and an "out-of-box" approach for telecom usage in Agriculture sector.

Other speakers at the workshop included research work on knowledge and information needs of small growers and non-growers by Ms. Nilusha Kapugama Research Manager LIRNEasia, an ICT model for Agriculture extension by Ms. Mahrukh Siraj CABI-South Asia, an overview of ICT role in agriculture sector of Pakistan by Mr. Shahid Uddin Akbar CEO Bangladesh Institute of ICT 4 Development, Mobile Agricultural Information Systems by Mr. Sriganesh Lokanathan Research Manager LIRNEasia, Telecom Role in Agriculture by Mr. Rohaan Ali, Four Brothers Group, An introduction to Agriculture Commodity Trade by Mr. Tughral Turab Ali Telenor and Role of Communications in Agriculture by Mr. Saif Ur Rehman Director Marketing and Sales Sohni Dharti TV.

It is pertinent to mention here that the workshop provided a platform for organizations working in agriculture sector to discuss in detail, the ways and means of generating benefits for agriculture by using telecommunication.

Ufone Offers 100,000 Saudi Riyals and Umrah Packages

Posted: 03 Jul 2012 09:05 PM PDT

Read this post in Urdu

ufone saudi riyal Ufone Offers 100,000 Saudi Riyals and Umrah Packages Ufone is offering its customers a chance to win Umrah tickets on daily basis, two of them per day in fact and 100,000 Saudi Riyals (or Rs. 2,500,000) as bumper prize through lucky draw.

How to Participate:

All you need to do is to consume Rs. 10 per day to get enlisted in the lucky draw.

Promotion is already running and will remain valid till August 17th, 2012.

Two complete Umarh packages are to be announced daily, while two bumper prize winners of 100,000 Saudi Riyals will be announced after 1st week of Eid.

Terms & Conditions:

The duration of this offer is from 1 July 2012 to 17 Aug 2012
Umrah Package will cover Visa Fee, Accommodation for 7 days and Air Travel cost only. All other expenses will be bear by the winner.
Customer will have the option to get cash equivalent of Umrah package.
The winners will be contacted by Ufone itself via call from '333' number
Lucky draw for bumper prize will be conducted in the 1st week after Eid
Lucky draw for bumper prize will be conducted among those subscribers who would have used Rs.10 (Inc. of taxes) on any day between 1 July 2012 to 17 Aug 2012
Do not entertain any calls or SMS asking for credit transfer or balance load/share to win the prize. Ufone will not be responsible for any loss that may occur due to any such activities
Lucky Draw will be conducted on daily basis on those subscribers who have consumed a minimum balance of Rs 10(Inc of Taxes) on that day.
This offer is for all new, MNP and existing Prepaid customers only
Ufone employees, their family members and employees of related organizations cannot be a part of this lucky draw
Ufone's decision(s) related to the lucky draw will be deemed final
Prizes can be availed from specific service centers
To avail the prize it is mandatory that the SIM is in your name
Customers can encash the Umrah Package, Remaining prizes cannot be exchanged or transferred in any situation
Ufone keeps the rights to advertise the winners
Terms and Conditions apply.
Using SIMS without proper documentation is a crime – PTA
19.5% FED on usage and 10% withholding tax at recharge or bill applies.

world on your screen

Wednesday, July 4, 2012