Although some of the major news agencies were reporting that SMS and cell
phone coverage had been jammed, it was only partially true with parts of
Islamabad being taken off at times. However, given some of the activists’
experience with disaster relief communications, many groups knew that SMS
couldn’t be censored (Pakistan’s Telecoms Authority generally use cheap mobile
jamming devices which had proven ineffective in the past). Added to the fears
that the internet may be taken offline in the weeks ahead (this hasn’t happened
in Pakistan yet) and the growing concerns over the clampdown of independent
media in Pakistan, a coalition . . . was formed as an
umbrella group to resist the ‘emergency’ in Pakistan. It was decided to deploy
SMS to aid efforts in getting factual/accurate information flowing in a two-way
manner for…
Tag Archive for 'Islamabad'
Call for Papers: Infrastructure Regulation: What works, Why, and How do we know?
Deadline: 05 December 2008.
The implications of mobile number portability (MNP) were discussed at a Workshop on Implementing Mobile Number Portability, held in August 2007 in Islamabad, Pakistan. The forum, comprising participants from the Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, provided insight into the technical, regulatory and operational aspects impacted by the porting process, with a focus on the Pakistani MNP experience.
The reasons cited in favor of MNP were classified into advantages to subscribers and regulators. The former were benefited by an increase in choice (of packages) and the eliminated costs of having to inform third parties of a number change, while the latter saw MNP as an approach to attract new investment and generate healthy competition. Operators on the other hand, were split in their views; new entrants…
In the South Asian region, Pakistan has taken the lead in introducing mobile number portability. Who will be second? As the story below states, this takes some time and planning. LIRNEasia will shortly post a report on the MNP workshop conducted in Islamabad by the PTA last week.
The Nigerian telecoms regulator is working on plans to allow mobile phone subscribers to keep the same number when they change networks in a bid to force providers to improve services, its top executive said Monday.
As things stand, Nigerians have to give up their numbers if they want to move to a new network, which discourages many subscribers from trying a different provider even when they face constant problems making or receiving calls.
“We are planning…
The ITU’s World Information Society Report 2007 contains the following discussion of one of LIRNEasia’s flagship products, the Telecom Regulatory Environment (TRE) assessment, in Chapter 2, Bridging the digital divide (p. 32).
“One innovative approach adopted recently in the
Asian market is to try to quantify the extent of
sector reform. LIRNEAsia has conducted research
into the regulatory environment in six Asian economies
(India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri
Lanka and Thailand). Their research is based on
interviews rating performance in market entry,
scarce resources, interconnection, prices, anticompetitive
practices and universal service. Their
evaluation of the regulatory environment is in general
agreement with sector performance, as measured
by the DOI. However, the fit is not perfect: for
instance, Sri Lanka actually gained two places in
the DOI, but it lagged behind, ranked fourth out
of the six countries in regulatory performance.11
This suggests…
At the Pakistan Telecom Authority-LIRNEasia workshop held in Islamabad on June 14, 2007, the Chairman of the PTA announced the most recent data on the telecom sector in Pakistan. Given the lack of a definition of a mobile subscriber and evidence that multiple SIMs are being used by individuals, it is LIRNEasia’s practice to refer to mobile SIMs rather than subscribers. That does not take away from the tremendous achievement of the Pakistan operators and the regulatory agency in increasing connectivity to levels above Sri Lanka and India.
Pakistan exceeds in Telecom Regulatory Environment - PakTribune
Chairman PTA said that PTA had provided level playing field in different areas of tele use in the country.
He appreciated the research activities in communication sector as they motivated to perform…
14 June 2007) Rohan Samarajiva, Joseph Wilson, Harsha de Silva and Tahani Iqbal presented recent research conducted by LIRNEasia at a media and stakeholder event organized by the Pakistan Telecom Authority in Islamabad today.
Following opening remarks by Chairman of PTA, Major General (R) Shahzada Alam Malik, Samarajiva and Wilson presented the new improved version of the six-country Telecom Regulatory Environment study, with emphasis on Pakistan.
de Silva discussed the results of the Teleuse @ the Bottom of the Pyramid (T@BOP) survey conducted in five countries, including Pakistan. Among other things, he discussed the disparate access to ICTs between men and women at the BOP as well as the tremendous progress made in connecting large numbers of people at the BOP in the past few years.
Iqbal presented comparative analysis of…
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