Ufone, Nokia Partners for Internet Drive for Nokia C1: ProPakistani

Ufone, Nokia Partners for Internet Drive for Nokia C1
PTCL Opens its 2nd Data Center in Lahore
Telenor Pakistan Eyeing GSMA Award in 2011
HP Pavilion [Laptop Preview]
Can You Really do Without Your Blackberry Device?

Ufone, Nokia Partners for Internet Drive for Nokia C1

Posted: 14 Jan 2011 08:27 AM PST

Ufone, Nokia Partners for Internet Drive for Nokia C1 is a post from: ProPakistani

Ufone and Nokia have announced the launch of "My First Mobile Internet Screen" initiative; a low priced Nokia Handset with lowest priced Internet service in Pakistan by Ufone that will empower consumers to avail cheapest internet access ever offered in Pakistan.

The package deal will provide Internet facility by Ufone on Nokia C1 sets. The service will be pre-configured on these devices.

This was announced at a joint press conference held by CEO Ufone, Mr. Abdul Aziz and Imran Khalid Mahmood of Nokia who also spoke on future initiatives that the companies will be taking together to enhance the mobility experience for both Nokia and Ufone customers.

All Ufone customers who purchase the new Nokia C1; a low priced Nokia Handset will avail the lowest priced internet rates in the country. The idea behind the initiative is to give internet access to the masses and allow them to experience the World Wide Web for the first time especially while on the move.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Abdul Aziz, President and CEO, Ufone said,

"Both Ufone & Nokia have been at the forefront of all technological advancement in the telecom industry. We together have and shall ensure that we continue to give our customers the most advanced benefits in the country. This partnership shall help strengthen our promise to empower the masses and ensure that our valued customers are happy with our services."

Addressing the media, Mr. Imran Khalid Mahmood, Country GM, Nokia Pakistan said,

"Our sustained partnership with local telecom operators like Ufone is an indicator that we are a global company with a local approach. Just like Ufone, Nokia would continue to bring the relevant internet solution & applications to Pakistani consumers at affordable prices enabling more people to stay connected in new and better ways."

The conference was also aimed at promoting sustainable environment. Ufone and Nokia customers can now help save the environment by being a part of the extremely important "Green Recycling" initiative. Nokia which announced its recycling program in Pakistan earlier last year is now poised for successful expansion of its environmental initiative.

Initially Nokia Recycling boxes were available at 10 Nokia Care outlets. However, with yet another exciting collaboration between Ufone and Nokia, Recycling boxes will now be placed at 24 Ufone Sales outlets across the country.

Furthermore, Ufone plans to bring extremely attractive value proposition on future Nokia smart phones for its High Value customers with most favorable usage plans, it is worthwhile to mention that last quarter 2010, Ufone and Nokia launched Nokia N8 and Nokia C3 devices with special data plans and the joint collaboration received tremendous response from the masses.

Apart from affordable internet rates, Ufone will also offer its subscribers the convenience of activating their "OVI store" at Ufone Customer Sales & Service Centers across the country.

PTCL Opens its 2nd Data Center in Lahore

Posted: 14 Jan 2011 02:24 AM PST

PTCL Opens its 2nd Data Center in Lahore is a post from: ProPakistani

According to PTCL's website, its data center in Lahore is operational now. First being in Karachi, Lahore's data center is going to be company's second facility in Pakistan.

PTCL Lahore's data center is reportedly connected with PTCL's global MPLS backbone to offer a rich portfolio of hosting solutions. With availability of Lahore center, PTCL is now able to offer largest redundant solution for corporate and SME customers.

PTCL says that its data centers are certified by the internationally recognized certification body, EPI, This certification by an international body is the first data center certification in Pakistan’s history.

This hosting/computing solution is going to be catchy for companies/websites having major clients in Pakistan.

For hosting packages from PTCL click here.

PTCL is going to offer following services through its Lahore center:

Infrastructure Hosting (Caging, Co-Location)
Application Hosting (To Host Customer applications on Unified PTCL Infrastructure)
On Demand Services (DR Solution , Backup Solution, Storage on Demand, Processing on Demand, HA through PTCL infrastructure)
Hosted Business Solution (Email & Collaboration , Unified Communications, Video Conferencing, SaaS (Software as a Service), CRMs, ERP)

Features:

99.999 % Uptime
Every component is TIA 942 compliant
Quarterly Technical Audits
Round the clock support
Gigabit Ethernet on demand basis
3+ Tier Storage Architecture

Following is the official PR for this:

Pakistan Telecommunication Company LTD (PTCL) understanding the rapidly changing business environment and its growing reliance upon automation has launched a second Data Center in Lahore.
PTCL Data Centers are certified by the internationally recognized certification body, EPI.

This certification by an international body is the first data center certification in Pakistan’s history and proves PTCL's commitment to providing state of the art products and services backed by engineering and support for the Government and Enterprise markets of Pakistan.

PTCL with the inauguration of Karachi data center earlier and Lahore data center now, will have the largest geographically redundant commercial data centers in Pakistan.

PTCL Data Center services is an ideal choice for companies who want the flexibility to house their Primary, Disaster Recovery and/or Business Continuity sites and choose from a variety of cost reducing services as their business demands. These data centers are part of the overall PTCL managed services approach which provides our corporate customers not only reduced costs, but also improvements in the availability, performance, resilience and security of an organization's IT systems.

PTCL Data Center solution provides customers Managed and Hosted Cloud based services that comprise of Computing as a Service, Processing as a service, Storage as a Service, Software as a Service, Application Hosting, Infrastructure Hosting, Caging, Co-Location, Disaster Recovery as a service, Backup Solutions, Hosted Business Solutions, Unified Communications and Telepresence switching.

This certification by an internationally recognized organization ensures that PTCL Data centers provide a reliable, responsive and resilient infrastructure, is designed and built using international standards and provides a secure, managed, climatically controlled environment for the housing and hosting of sensitive, mission-critical data and applications. This benefits our customers in terms of cost, efficiency and scalability of its IT systems, It allows businesses to protect critical applications and confidential data, enhance its ITs operational efficiencies, and rapidly create new secure application environments to support new business processes.

President PTCL Walid Irshaid said "PTCL is heavily investing in these ICT assets on behalf of our customers so that they can focus on their core competencies. Getting our Data Centers certified is further evidence that PTCL is committed to provide technology to the Government and Enterprise markets of Pakistan of international standards. As the National Carrier of Pakistan this is not only our obligation but also our duty."

PTCL is the only unified service provider in Pakistan, able to service all customer segments including consumers, enterprise and carries with a comprehensive portfolio of services to cater for all their needs.

Telenor Pakistan Eyeing GSMA Award in 2011

Posted: 14 Jan 2011 12:48 AM PST

Telenor Pakistan Eyeing GSMA Award in 2011 is a post from: ProPakistani

story.paisa Telenor Pakistan Eyeing GSMA Award in 2011 Telenor Pakistan with its product Easypaisa has entered the race of the Global Mobile Awards 2011 for the first time to record a landmark milestone achievement in its history.

The Norwegian cellular operator seems confident in contesting for two following categories (out of 9 total categories).

Social and Economic Development
Best Mobile Business and Enterprises.

The two categories listed above have five sub-titles including:

Best Mobile Enterprise Product or Solution
Best Mobile Money Product or Solution
Best use of Mobile for Social & Economic Development
Best ‘Mobile Money for the Unbanked’ Service
Best Product, Initiative or Service for Underserved Segments.

The GSM Association's Global Mobile Awards 2011 ceremony would be held on February 15 in Barcelona, Spain to announce the name of the winning cellular phone operators of this year.

This will be 16th Annual Global Mobile Awards contest offering nine categories and 22 titles.

GSMA award ceremony will be the part of the Mobile World Congress, which will be held 14-17 February.

The GSM Association Awards is considered as the most prestigious contest and mostly called as Oscar for the mobile phone and telecommunication industry.

Telenor Pakistan has already grabbed Mobile Money Transfer Award in November 2010 for its mobile-banking services "Easypaisa".

The Easypaisa services transacted Rs. 10 billion in a single year with the total transaction carried recorded six million mark till October 2010. Starting with 2,200 outlets at the launch, service has been extended to more than 11,000 outlets in 700 urban and rural areas across Pakistan. The spread is even greater than the number of bank branches in Pakistan, which is 8,000.

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) is also contesting in the Global Mobile Awards 2011 for the the category of Outstanding Achievement Awards including Best GSMA Chairman's Award and Government Leadership Award.

HP Pavilion [Laptop Preview]

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 08:35 PM PST

HP Pavilion [Laptop Preview] is a post from: ProPakistani

Manufacturers: Hewlett-Packard

Class: Pavilion

Model: dm3t

Price: Rs.50,000 approx

Specs Overview:

Operating System: Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Processor: Intel Core i3-380UM 1.33Ghz
RAM: 3 GB DDR3
Hard Drive: 320 GB @ 7200 RPM
Graphics Card: Intel Integrated HD card
Battery: 6 cell Lithium-Ion, 7.5 hours max
Display: 13.3" LED Display
DVD-ROM: None
Webcam: HP TrueVision Webcam with MIC
Wireless: Wireless Network Card 802.11b/g/n
Bluetooth: None

Thin n Light:

The system offers a very compact design in terms of thickness. Compared to most laptops, this one comes in a sleek design. A width of just 1" is very impressive.

This feature along with a screen size of 13.3" contributes to the decrease in weight of the system. It weights nearly 3.98" lbs, which is pretty impressive particularly for an HP system since they are usually known to be bulky.

Audio Software Flaws:

The audio software of the this HP laptop is very irritating. Any program that requires full screen operation has to be minimized to change volume levels.

Although the volume controls are integrated on the top of the keyboard, but touching them minimizes the (full-screened) program and then the change takes place.

This is especially very irritating when a heavy program or a game is running and it gets minimized each time the volume controls are touched.

For some this is a problem, for others, this isn't even a flaw.

Screen Movement:

The screen of the laptop can not be tilted beyond a certain angle. After movement of about 30 degrees or so, the screen can not tilt backwards any further. This is annoying some times if you have to sit on a level higher than the placing position of the system.

Although the LED screen would still let you see the screen properly but it will loose the brightness and definition to some extent.

Not the gamers' choice:

Unfortunately HP does not offer any choice to upgrade the graphics card of this HP Pavilion laptop. No other card can be used in with the laptop except the one already mentioned in the specs.

This certainly comes as a disappointment because most companies would let the users customize the laptop if they agree to pay more but in this case even that option is not available.

So if you are a fan of gaming, this is certainly not your system.

Good battery Timing:

The battery time of this system is particularly impressive. With light browsing and using the machine in power saver mode, it is possible to get a battery time of about 5.5 hours.

With more usage the time will get reduced to about 2 hours. The time that the company claims can usually be achieved when you switch on the laptop and do nothing, and this is generally not the case.

Nice Design:

Compared to some of its other competitors, HP is still doing a good job as far as the design of a system is concerned. The laptop body is made of metal, not plastic and its interior gives a rich metallic look. The metal used this time is of better quality as it does not get finger prints over it self and is also more gripping than the ones used in previous pavilions.

Official Rating: 4.4/5

Underline: A cheap and good system for any daily life task, but not the gamers' choice.

Can You Really do Without Your Blackberry Device?

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 08:30 PM PST

Can You Really do Without Your Blackberry Device? is a post from: ProPakistani

clip image0025 Can You Really do Without Your Blackberry Device? Okay, I will be the first to admit, ever since I got a Blackberry, I have been raving about it to everyone.

At first, I never thought I would get used to it, and it seemed like a huge big calculator to me (I am more used to sleek phones). But once I got it, it really grew on me.

But now I have begun to wonder if there really is any big deal about a Blackberry and more important, can you do without it?

Well, first of, let me begin with telling you the truth. I got my Blackberry cellphone from my company and they pay for the service charges as well. So basically for me, it's free. Otherwise, I would have been forced to shell out a minimum of Rs. 15,000 for a basic device (a pearl) and at least Rs. 1,000 per month just for the services.

So would I opt for it if I had to pay the charges for myself? Well, after thinking about it for sometime, I would have to say a Big No.

Although the Blackberry really does help with my work, it intrudes on my personal time as well. Whenever I hear its buzz, I get this urge to check the inbox.

The premium charge for Blackberry service is a lot. Almost all cellular operators are offering GPRS packages (2GB limit for Rs. 500) whereas the minimum charges for Blackberry service are from Rs. 750 – Rs. 1,000 (depending on operator), which means that with Blackberry I am spending about Rs. 250 – 500 extra. Now what do these extra charges translate into?

Very little actually!

Officially Blackberry browsers are not working so I am confided to do the browsing with a 3^rd party application like the Bolt. The Facebook app will not work as well. I do get an option to configure 10 e-mail addresses but I can do the same on any new smartphone as well.

In fact, many e-mail services like Gmail have their own apps which work a lot better on non-blackberry smartphones. Unfortunately you will be unable to use Yahoo on blackberry unless you have a paid account so that is another expense.

The other two options that I get is a Blackberry e-mail address, which goes something like name@serviceprovider.blackberry.com but do I really need another e-mail address after Gmail? Again, I would say: NO!

Here, I would like to mention a really nice feature, the Blackberry messenger. But again, most of my contacts are on MSN, so incase I really want to trade encrypted (yes indeed, BB messenger is encrypted) messages with my work colleagues regarding my boss, then it really is a great utility.

A myth which somewhat generated about Blackberry services is that browsing is really fast. I haven't really noticed the speed although the OS is really great, I don't really like their browser. So any 3^rd party browser is bound to affect speed.

Yes, you do get push based e-mail so your phone won't be engaged when you get e-mails so that really is a plus point.

But at the end of the day, I will prefer a phone with nice multimedia features, a nice camera, 1 year warranty (yes, incase you did not know, most operators are offering Blackberry's in Pakistan with a limited warranty) and the ability to use the Facebook app without having to pay extra. And lets not forget, I will still be able to configure multiple e-mail addresses.