Mobilink Gives its Subscribers a Quiet Sunday: ProPakistani

Mobilink Gives its Subscribers a Quiet Sunday
Chairman PTA Gets his Own Blog!
Mobilink is Getting Back Online, Partially at least! [Updated]
Next-Gen Gaming – Unreal Engine 3
India to Deploy Mobile Towers with-in 500 Meters of Border
Ufone Ladies Package Offers 50 % Discount on Women’s Day

Mobilink Gives its Subscribers a Quiet Sunday

Posted: 07 Mar 2011 03:56 AM PST

Mobilink Gives its Subscribers a Quiet Sunday is a post from: ProPakistani

foldershare downtime Mobilink Gives its Subscribers a Quiet Sunday

For the masses of Mobilink customers, this Sunday was a nostalgic experience of the days before cellular communication as the company recreated a sense of tranquility by going offline.

While protests did not break out and chaos did not take control, it did send a sudden realization of how important this little gizmo has become to us.

The immediate reaction of many as they saw the bars disappear from their handsets was 'Mera signal nahi aa raha' ('I am not getting any signals'), and the glance at friends and families to check if they were the only desolate soul to suffer this unimaginable wrath or were there other victims to seek solace from.

The Telenor talkers boycotted their 'Khamoshi' and the Ufone Uth laughed out loud, while the Warid stronghold simply shook their heads in silent disapproval. The Zong crowd was too busy with their own stuff to worry about anyone else. But the fingers arose pointed at the Mobilink mob, blaming them for being part of an evil cult that simply never worked. A little exaggerated!

What Actually had Happened?

A norm among the millions of cell users when something goes wrong is to call their helpline. However, that is hard to do when there is no line to call for help. So, the resourceful ones took to the web to figure out why they had been placed into this dreaded 'no link' zone. And then the sharing of tweets and statuses began, with the venting of anger and frustration.

It took a few hours for the realization that something serious had occurred. The slow trickle of news from various sources spoke of a fire at some center in Islamabad that belonged to a telecommunication company. And it is not that hard to put 2 and 2 together.

The more connected individuals tracked down the carnage to a fire that had broken out at Mobilink's Mobile Switching Centre (MSC) in Islamabad.

We have here the official version of what had exactly happened!

For those who don't know, MSCs are exchanges that make the connection between mobile users in a network, and the result from any damage to its infrastructure or system would have effects for the entire base it supported.

Who was impacted?

The preliminary estimates showed that the North region went down as the fire engulfed the MSC, which means Peshawar to Islamabad and the surrounding areas. Along with the cellular service, DSL services by Link DOT Net also got affected as the company is reliant on the Mobilink backbone for its products.

However, as the MSC was a vital component for cross-country connectivity, the loss of service extended to other regions, with subscribers as far as Karachi suffering.

Bad few Months for Mobilink!

Unforeseen events are an unfortunate by-product of the corporate environment, especially in the technology sector. In areas that are furnished with wires, electric gadgets, batteries and loads of other inflammable goods, the smallest of issues can end up causing significant headaches for the entire company as well as its consumers.

For Mobilink, the past few months have seen these events become a bit too regular. The fire at Beverly Centre in Islamabad was followed by a fire at a technical facility in Karachi, and then the event on this Sunday.

While one cannot place blame as such events could and have happened to other companies in the same sector, the conspiracy theorists see a deeper connection. For one, Sundays seem the black day of the week for the Pakistani cellular giant, especially their technical division. The irony here is that 'I love Sundays' is one of the shout-outs for the product portfolio of the company.

At the international level, cellular companies have long established contingency plans that map out the path for it to ensure continued service to its consumers. These plans involve various scenarios which could play destructive roles for the company's network. In certain cases, such plans are drawn up as a result of an event for which the company wasn't prepared, to ensure better response for the future.

However, such a strategy is devoid in the case here. If you get burnt once, human nature is to ensure greater care when approaching similar scenarios again. For corporate entities, common sense seems to be much lower down the order. It beggars one to understand what level of skill and thought is undertaken when core facilities are planned and manned.

Over time, analysts have stated that the current network of Pakistan's leading cellular company has aged beyond its serving base. In some ways, this could relate to the earlier deployment compared to the competitors. But incremental innovation is the key to remain strong, irrespective of industry. It is through such innovation that an entity can ensure it solutions remain a viable aspect for competition in the market.

Related conspiracies have raised allegations of arson on the company, stating that insurance money is used to pay for replacements with upgraded technology. However, such allegations are unsubstantiated. They also are not the complete picture of the corporate lifecycle, as it would be hard for a company to repair its image and consumer confidence with such ease.

Loss Estimates?

The estimated loss from this recent event is said to run in the many millions of rupees. Add to that the lost revenue, and it is hard to imagine the above conspiracy to hold any grounding.

But what is harder to understand is the fragility of the network and how one link in the chain could end up causing headaches all around. Furthermore, why would a veteran of the cellular service in Pakistan not be better prepared for such calamities, especially in the wake of the incidents prior to this one?

One event should not stop the mobile provider from stopping to be reflected as 'Apna Hai'. But this Sunday, usage on Mobile was 'Sapna hai'.

While we pray for the early recovery of 'Apna' network, we reiterate the need to plan the implementation of technology at the same pace with which we continue to add the millions of users, and accumulate the many millions of profit.

Chairman PTA Gets his Own Blog!

Posted: 07 Mar 2011 03:36 AM PST

Chairman PTA Gets his Own Blog! is a post from: ProPakistani

dr Chairman PTA Gets his Own Blog! Yes, you hear that right. Chairman PTA, Dr. Mohammad Yasin is blogging now, primarily to gather input from different segments of the industry on various topics.

Whatever his aim is, or the outcome turns out to be, we strongly back Dr. Yasin's this initiative, which will help us hear his words directly – and to get our feedback relayed to him, almost in person.

A fellow blogger, while commenting on Dr. Yasin's blog, said that this marks as an achievement for the blogging community itself.

"Though blog needs a lot of improvements in order to make it easier for users to read and comment on it, still it's a sign of attainment", he added.

Okay, we are not holding you any further, here's the URL: http://dryaseen.pk

Dr. Yasin, in his first post, is asking for input from industry if we should go for 3G or 4G?

Via Rafeel A Chaudary C/O TGP

Mobilink is Getting Back Online, Partially at least! [Updated]

Posted: 06 Mar 2011 11:35 PM PST

Mobilink is Getting Back Online, Partially at least! [Updated] is a post from: ProPakistani

Mobilink has managed to get its network back online, at least partially, after a fire broke out and damaged its main switching center in Islamabad yesterday evening.

In a communication with ProPakistani, Mr. Omar Manzoor, Director public relations at Mobilink, confirmed of the fire eruption in the company's MSC in Islamabad, causing a major network outage, primarily in north region from 5 PM last evening to 5 AM this morning.

According to Mr. Omar, there was no loss of life and fire was controlled in early hours that mainly damaged the building.

From sources, we have learned that fire broke out in power room and damaged major portion of it. Due to early containment, telecom equipment remained safe with no notable harm to it.

He confirmed that network is back, partially, while the complete restoration and network normalization may take another two hours from now (its 12:30 PM at the time of filing of this report).

When asked about any estimates on monetary loss, Mr. Manzoor said that any evaluations are yet to happen. "Right now, company's foremost priority is to get the network back', he added.

Update (5:30 PM)

We just got following statement from Mobilink, which claims that network is fully restored.

Mobilink confirms the complete restoration of all services including voice, SMS and data connectivity that were affected due to a fire incident yesterday.

"All services have been restored and our customers should not be experiencing any difficulty in getting through to their loved ones. We sincerely regret any inconvenience caused to our valued customers," said Omar Manzur, Director Public Relations, Mobilink.

Any customers continuing to experience difficulty may call our helpline 111 from their mobile or 111-300-300 from a landline.

Next-Gen Gaming – Unreal Engine 3

Posted: 06 Mar 2011 10:32 PM PST

Next-Gen Gaming – Unreal Engine 3 is a post from: ProPakistani

Gamers, gear up. Epic Games, the developers who brought you Gears of War and BulletStorm, just showed off what their latest upgrade to the already great Unreal Engine 3 can do.

A demo scene titled, "Samaritan", highlighted the features of the engine at the Game Developers Conference last Thursday. The upgrade consists of various graphical updates which will be provided to Unreal Games' partners.

Epic Games' Mark Rein showcased the demo for the Unreal Engine 3, reiterating that the demo would not work on current consoles. The demo ran on a custom PC running on three Nvidia GTX 580 graphics cards in SLI in order to get a decent frame-rate.

Unreal Engine 3 (UE3), third generation of Unreal Engine, is designed for DirectX 9/10/11 PCs, the Xbox 360, and the PlayStation 3. Its renderer supports many advanced techniques including HDRR, per-pixel lighting, and dynamic shadows.

A couple of the features explained from in-game images:

clip image002 Next Gen Gaming Unreal Engine 3

clip image004 Next Gen Gaming Unreal Engine 3

Many major game developing studios already have licenses to use the engine and last month Gameloft jumped on the bandwagon too, partnering with Epic games in a deal that will allow them to use Unreal Engine 3 in four new games. Two of them will be released this year and two in 2012.

Popular titles running on the Unreal Engine 3 include heavy-weights like Mass effect 2, Bioshock 2 and Unreal tournament 3 to name a few. So its logical to think that support for the engine will only increase.

Here's the video of the demo shown to the press at the Game Developer Conference 2011. The footage isn't the official one, which should be released sometime later next week, rather it was shot by an enthusiast so it's a bit shaky.

Here's a video showing off the new features:

India to Deploy Mobile Towers with-in 500 Meters of Border

Posted: 06 Mar 2011 09:08 PM PST

India to Deploy Mobile Towers with-in 500 Meters of Border is a post from: ProPakistani

Spillover signals from Indian operators were already impacting the Pakistani networks, however, the situation may get sever with this recent decision of Indian department of Telecommunication, according to which: All Indian operators can now install mobile towers with-in 500 meters of the border.

It merits mentioning here that signal strength of GSM mobile towers cover 8-25 Kilometers of areal distance.

Earlier, Indian operators were not allowed to install with-in 10 kilometers of the border.

This looks a deliberate move from India to leave its GSM tail long inside the Pakistani territory, which will deteriorate the signal spill-over issue at various parts of the border line, mainly the in AJK, Sialkot, Kasur, Sahiwal, Bahawalnagar and Bahawalpur near the Indian border.

Both the countries have accused each other in past over the signal spill-over, however, as per media reports both the countries were planning to sit and talk to resolve the GSM signal spillover in border areas.

India's this move of installing towers so close to border will hamper any such efforts being made to resolve the signal spillover issue.

Ufone Ladies Package Offers 50 % Discount on Women’s Day

Posted: 06 Mar 2011 08:30 PM PST

Ufone Ladies Package Offers 50 % Discount on Women’s Day is a post from: ProPakistani

Ufone Ladies Ufone Ladies Package Offers 50 % Discount on Womens Day Ufone is celebrating the Women's Day on March 8th, 2011, by offering 50 percent discount to its Ladies Package subscribers. This means that the call will be only Re. 1 per hour on all Ufone to Ufone and Ufone to PTCL numbers (during prescribed timings – ).

Tariff for Ufone Ladies Package:

Calls to Ufone and PTCL (10 AM to 5 PM): Rs. 2 per hour (With Women Day discount Rs. 1 per hour will be charged)
Calls to Ufone and PTCL (5 PM to 10 AM): Rs. 1.25 per minute
Calls to other networks (24 hours): Rs. 1.25 per minute
SMS (Ufone to Ufone): 50 Paisa
SMS (Ufone to other networks): Rs. 1
Daily Charges: 50 Paisas

How to Subscribe:

To subscribe to Ufone Lady's Package, dial *34#

Complete details are available here

Ufone is already offering 20% discounts that Ladies Package subscribers can get on shopping from Stylo, Nishat Linen and Depelix; as a Lady's Package subscriber you will also get amazing special gift hampers.