Pakistan to Launch Paksat-1R Satellite This Month: ProPakistani

Pakistan to Launch Paksat-1R Satellite This Month
Wi-Tribe Power Hours: Unmetered Downloads from 1AM to 1PM
Warid Ramadan Quiz with Daily Balance and Weekly Prizes
Facebook Crosses 5 Million Users from Pakistan
Is Telecom Reporting Undergoing a Halt?

Pakistan to Launch Paksat-1R Satellite This Month

Posted: 09 Aug 2011 04:44 AM PDT

paksat 1r 1 300x217 Pakistan to Launch Paksat 1R Satellite This Month Pakistan is all set to launch its Paksat-1R satellite in next week or so in collaboration with China.

Paksat-1R is successor of Paksat-1 and will replace it as Paksat-1 is successfully going to complete its life, this year.

This Pakistani geostationary and advanced communication satellite will be launched from Chinese satellite launching site in second week of August, based on weather conditions.

Paksat-1R happens to be the first locally built satellite by scientists and engineers from Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission under the technical guidance and financial assistance from counterpart China National Space Administration of People’s Republic of China (PRC).

It carries communications payload to facilitate the introduction of a range of new services, including broadband Internet, digital television broadcasting, remote and rural telephony, emergency communications, tele-education and tele-medicine. The satellite is expected to have 15 years lifespan, and will be operated from Suparco Satellite Ground Station.

Pakistan's Ambassador to China, Masood Khan unveiling the launch schedule, said:

Paksat-1R is going to be a new symbolic development in Pakistan-China relations, as it will broaden the horizons of cooperation between the two countries. It will revolutionize the use of broadband Internet, digital television broadcasting and mobile telephony. It will spur our economy, strengthen the education and health sectors and help us with disaster preparedness and response.

We are now looking at cooperation in remote sensing satellites. It is a long term project with many civilian uses. A remote sensing satellite will cover areas like agriculture, oceanography, disaster management and mitigation, crop monitoring, earth observation, water resources management, weather forecasting and urban planning. Such an application will have a direct positive impact on Pakistan's socio-economic development.

Khan said that Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) is establishing the necessary space technology infrastructure in Pakistan and we would want to develop our spaceflight programme with cooperation of China.

via The Nation

Wi-Tribe Power Hours: Unmetered Downloads from 1AM to 1PM

Posted: 09 Aug 2011 01:29 AM PDT

Wi-Tribe has introduced another promotion for its customers who are downloading monsters.

Power Hours offer gives you option to use internet without getting worried about bandwidth consumption, so now you can download on your wi-tribe connection.

Offer Details:

Power Hours allows you to download between 1AM and 1PM without cosuming your package’s bandwidth. Subscribe to this offer and you will be given an additional bandwidth of 50GB which will be used in the given timings.

This offer works on monthly basis and you are provided with 50GB for one month.

Note that your normal package’s bandwidth will be consumed in non power hours i.e from 1PM to 1AM. Also if you consume your package bandwidth before completion of the month, you will still be able to use your wi-tribe connection in power hours.

Price:

You can activate Power Hours in Rs. 300 per month.

Note:

This offer is not available on endless packages, i.e. endless 512Kbps and endless 2Mbps.

Furthermore, wi-tribe is promoting Flash Get (download manager) for timely downloads so that you may be able to get maximum out of your power hours.

Warid Ramadan Quiz with Daily Balance and Weekly Prizes

Posted: 09 Aug 2011 01:25 AM PDT

warid quiz Warid Ramadan Quiz with Daily Balance and Weekly Prizes

Following Ufone’s Ramadan Quiz, Warid has also introduced Ramadan Quiz with daily and weekly prizes along with grand prize of Umrah tickets.

By answering questions, Warid prepaid customers can win daily bonus balance up to Rs. 1000 and following prizes on weekly basis:

Motorcycle
LCD TV
Samsung Galaxy S II

Also there is a grand prize of Umrah with return tickets, lodging and visa expenses for two people, at the end of the promotion.

How to Participate:

You can take part by sending Quiz to 3000

Note that winner will be selected on the basis of points earned by answering questions. Consumers with maximum points on weekly and monthly basis will stand eligible for prizes.

Facebook Crosses 5 Million Users from Pakistan

Posted: 08 Aug 2011 10:05 PM PDT

Out of estimated 20 million overall internet population, over 5 million internet users from Pakistan are members of Facebook as well. Social networking giant added 2 million users from the country in last 8 months to cross 5 million mark recently.

3.4 million users from Pakistan on Facebook are male, while rest of 1.6 population is female. 76 percent of these users from Pakistan are aged between 18-34.

Facebook has seen positive growth in Pakistan during last three years except in May 2010. Over all Facebook remains the dominating social network in the country. Twitter is said to have around 2 million users from Pakistan, while Google Plus, still being in beta, is nearing 10,000 users from Pakistan.

Facebook Users Growth in Pakistan

User age distribution on Facebook in Pakistan

Male/Female User Ratio on Facebook in Pakistan

Story via Jawwad Jafri / Graphs via Social Bakers

Is Telecom Reporting Undergoing a Halt?

Posted: 08 Aug 2011 10:00 PM PDT

Telecom reporting in Pakistan, specifically for the print media, has gone through various phases.

There was a time when there was no telecom beat (talking about print media) despite having half a dozen mobile operators in the country; this was back in 2003-04.

Being the oldest, naturally Mobilink pioneered the idea of having a Public Relation department, which was later replicated by other mobile operators. But full marks to Mobilink for pushing print media reporters to cover their events, products, services and so on.

Mobilink's efforts combined with other cellular operators eventually convinced the media houses to define telecom as an independent beat by allocating dedicated reporters to cover the telecom industry.

Reporting after Telecom Boom:

Then there came a time when print media produced tons of news stories, analysis, researches and what not. If you remember, Business Recorder used to publish at least two pages for Telecom industry alone.

This was the time when Print media flourished. We saw dozens of new weeklies, dailies and monthly magazines appearing every other day and covering telecom industry.

Decline of Reporting after Economic Crunch:

Start of economic crunch, saturation in the market, coupled by elections in year 2008 was the beginning of down turn of telecom reporting. Telecom news in dailies started to shrink and ultimately started disappearing altogether by 2010 onwards.

If you look around presently, there hardly appears a telecom report or exclusive story in papers. No, I am not talking about press releases or reports detailing corporate events. In short, maturity of telecom industry didn't mature the reporters and hence media houses and telecom reporters were left behind.

Policy shift of celcos:

Lack of interest from PR agencies and PR departments forced telecom reporters into the dead pool, where they now rely on press releases only. Telecom operators go less public now, just look at press conference they do these days as compared to 2005-08. Where are those NOC visits, cell site tours and other such activities to engage telecom reporters?

Here's the reason: This is mainly because telecom operators have setup their businesses well and all they need now is the smooth sailing.

I have heard telecom reporters complaining about unsupportive PR departments. They say that mobile companies take days, even weeks, to respond to reporters' queries. Most of the time they don't comment or give you the required information in the name of privacy of corporate data.

Usage of marketing muscle further hampers the efforts of telecom reporters. They usually know that negative but genuine stories will go directly to editor's dustbin – so they find it better to not to report such stories in the first place.

Future:

I don't see things changing in coming months. Media houses and reporters should reconsider their current practices and the disadvantages it is bringing to their professional obligations.

Just look at the taxes that telecom consumers are paying, it's highest amongst all sectors, but mobile operators, even being largest investors in the country, don't do much about it. It's not that they can't, but as I said above, telecom operators are well off now, they opt not to use media for such issues, because if media goes up again – it may bug them in other matters too.

So equation is simple: Today telecom operators don't care much about brand building, sales, or market reputation. Now they want to keep it simple, neat, smooth and without any questions.

Blog of Asad Mirjat

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