Cricket loss leads to DoS attack
March 27
When the Indian cricket team was threatened with a follow-on, a Denial of service attack "originating from India's Bangalore software technology park hit the Pakistan Internet Exchange around 4 p.m.".
The attack lasted for more than an hour, but no one noticed as we were all watching the match on TV.
1 Comments:
Hey... Interesting post on business voip. By the way... Just found this resource where you can post your own articles on business voip - if you have something you want to share with the world. Besides, at the same time you'll get a link back to your own site on anything concerning business voip - or whatever else you'd like... why don't you check it out for yourself now...
By 
, at
Tuesday, October 4, 2005 at 1:02:00 AM GMT+5
Pakistan cut off from the world, again
Friday 25 March 2005
Once again Pakistan was cut off from the rest of the world, and indeed itself. Apparently the power supply to a section of the Fibre Optic link to FLAGs link was severed during construction work by some factory owner in Gulbai, Karachi.
Of course since most ISPs are just resellers of bandwidth and not 'real' ISPs we were cutoff even from those few websites hosted in Pakistan (no peering, why not??).
There were problems reported as early as 1pm though ISPAK says that the it lost connectivity at 3pm. Problems persisted until 8pm.
0 Comments:
V
PTCL launches its 'V' , wireless prepaid phone system in Karachi. It has been tested for several months in some smaller towns.
IT is CDMA 2000 based, which seems to be overkill. Since PTCL already has a mobile phone company in 'U Phone', it is difficult to make out a case for such an expensive technology.
The offer is Rs2999/- for a connection and a set.
0 Comments:
Callpoints
Callpoints is next up with a low rate package for Calling Cards . It matches DVcom's BIGtime in that long distance is Rs2.50 per minute and calls to the USA are Rs4.99 per minute.
0 Comments:
Africa: The Impact of Mobile Phones
Although not directly related to Pakistan, this Vodaphone sponsored research is quite interesting.
The main points of interest are:
[1] Mobile telephony has a positive and significant impact on economic growth, and this impact may be twice as large in developing countries as in developed countries;
[2] A developing country which has an average of 10 more mobile phones per 100 population between 1996 and 2003 had 0.59 percent higher GDP growth than an otherwise identical country;
[3] Fixed and mobile communications networks, in addition to the openness of the economy, the level of GDP and other infrastructure, are positively linked with Foreign Direct Investment into Africa and the impact of mobile telecommunications has grown in recent years.
The full report is available in PDF format and is available here:
http://www.vodafone.com/assets/files/en/AIMP_17032005.pdf
1 Comments:
I would say that it is more likely to be lack of network capacity. It is a problem calling Mobilink to Mobilink, PTCL to PTCL. Underinvestment may be the word I am looking for..
By , at
Monday, March 28, 2005 at 12:43:00 PM GMT+5
Mobilink dying
Looks like Mobilink is being nice to the new cellular companies by randomly stopping its service at various times in the day and night.
Friday midnight to Saturday 4am the service was not working in Karachi - I know because I really needed the service at that time. Friends report similar stories for other times, other places.
If Mobilink can send me an SMS to tell me about new lower rates, surely it could tell me about service down time?
0 Comments:
WorldCALL Telephony over Cable?
WorldCALL has a full page advert in the Business Recorder today announcing "The Launch of Telephony".
Given that their Internet access over cable in Karachi does not work between 5pm and 8pm, one hopes that they are not going to use VoIP.
There is nothing about this on the www.go4b.net website.
0 Comments:
DVcom dishonesty
We have several independent reports of DVcom overcharging customers of its BIGtime calling card.
In one, early, instance the IVR indicated at authentication that 15 minutes of talk time was available, however the clients watch reported that only 12 minutes were allowed.
More recently the IVR is more honest, but this means that the advertised rates are wrong. Whereas the newpaper advert claims that calls to the USA or UK are Rs4.99 per minute, actual charges are an amazing Rs9 to Rs10 per minute. DVcom sales staff claim that there are taxes (sound fair) and call setup charges (not fair as this is not mentioned anywhere in the advertising).
We would suggest that DVcom are thieves.
7 Comments:
Assalam-u-alaikum the mail and the answer to the comment posted by dvcom employee is absolutely right to the best of my knowledge cuz i was also there regular customer but not now.the rates to US and UK are the same as mentioned by him.but there is one big thing hidden in the scenario and its that that i have a really bad experience with there 1000 rupees cards,i got two bad experiences and these are that when i used the card and when there is some balance left the other day its compelety gone,the employees than use the card number and finish up the remaining balance.normally if you use a bigtime card there is about 5 rupees left but when the employees finish up the remaining balance there is not even a single rupee left and for that very reason due to their steeling away the balance i have shifted to callmate tellips which have got a better srvice with full reliability.so please anybody reading please be aware of the huge sum bigtime cards
By , at
Monday, May 2, 2005 at 4:30:00 AM GMT+5
Assalam-u-alaikum the mail and the answer to the comment posted by dvcom employee is absolutely right to the best of my knowledge cuz i was also there regular customer but not now.the rates to US and UK are the same as mentioned by him.but there is one big thing hidden in the scenario and its that that i have a really bad experience with there 1000 rupees cards,i got two bad experiences and these are that when i used the card and when there is some balance left the other day its compelety gone,the employees than use the card number and finish up the remaining balance.normally if you use a bigtime card there is about 5 rupees left but when the employees finish up the remaining balance there is not even a single rupee left and for that very reason due to their steeling away the balance i have shifted to callmate tellips which have got a better srvice with full reliability.so please anybody reading please be aware of the huge sum bigtime cards
By , at
Monday, May 2, 2005 at 4:37:00 AM GMT+5
Hi...As employee of DV com said that 10% withholding tax is applicable on calling cards. He is quite right in saying that. But the other thing that 16.5% sales tax is applicable is not true. Infact only 15% sales tax is applicable. So DVcom can not justify its extra deduction by quoting the false tax rate. I hope they will soon take notice of it. Thanx
By , at
Tuesday, June 7, 2005 at 10:10:00 AM GMT+5
hello all
let me clarify the situation of taxes:
As per government rules, the advanced income and sales taxes are 10% and 15% respectively. The taxes are however cummulative, that is, first 10% and then 15% on this 10% so effectively it comes out to be 26.5% as follows:
If the call is of Rs=4.99/min then
Advanced Income Tax=0.499 and
Sales Tax = (4.99+0.499)x15%=0.82335
and the effective taxes sum up to 26.5%
So
Total deduction=0.99+0.499+0.82335=6.31235
Hope this clarifies the situation
A BigTime fan
By , at
Thursday, June 16, 2005 at 11:50:00 PM GMT+5
We have been seeing commercials on tv for a long time, whereby gifts were to be given to used big time cardholders on oct 5 2005. Where are these? No card numbers of winners were published in the press. Another dishonesty? I would rather bang my head against a wall than try the boasted 24 hour help line- you can NEVER get through to anyone.
By , at
Friday, October 7, 2005 at 2:40:00 PM GMT+5
Tried DVcom website? go to dv.com.pk and you would find the site on its knees. The latest that it offers is that dvcom's limited mobility services shall commence within the first half of 2005! DVcom dont rip away our money. big time cards give no information as to how one may transfer remaining balance from an old card to a new card, unlike other cards e.g PTCL. So one ends up losing that balance. Thieves DVcom?
By , at
Friday, October 7, 2005 at 2:59:00 PM GMT+5
A brand is all about trust and credibility, where are those two things? totally missing ? so it mean DVCOM would never be able to become a stronger brand as acclaimed by Mr. Tahir Khan and Mr. Wassay.
Regards,
ZN.
By , at
Saturday, February 18, 2006 at 2:58:00 PM GMT+5
Telenor is here
Teleno launched officially today, carpet bombing of the airwaves, newspapers, TV and roadside banners. Pretty effective stuff for grabbing mindshare.
Their rates are good. Rs2.99 per minute to call anywhere in Pakistan for postpaid, and Rs3.99 for prepaid. Line rent for postpaid is Rs145.
Most importantly the main product differentiation seems to be on quality. We will wait and see how that works out.
0 Comments:
The revolution has started
The revolution is here and it is time to put the old regime up against the wall!
Progress has been slow, and we have all been waiting for far, far too long.
DVcom was the first to launch a serious attack on the pre-deregulation status quo. With fullpage colour adverts in daily newspapers and well made adverts on the popular TV channels, the BIGtime prepaid calling card launch was, well, big! It made a splash and reduced rates to those previously only available to users of VoIP. As expected international rates were low, but amazingly enough calls within Pakistan are charged at Rs2.50 per minute. I remember when calls from Karachi to Islamabad cost more than some International calls.
We are headed for interesting times!
Mobile.
Telenor and Warid Telecom have some time to go before they launch anything, but they are both advertising heavily and grabbing mindshare now. Paktel and Instaphone are both under threat as is Mobilink with its history of PTCL-like customer service.
Mobilink and Paktel both launched ad campaigns. Mobilink's was classy. Paktel was just plain weird: strange jarring colours and strange looking people.
Local Loop.
Telecard started offering GO CDMA. They had some teething problems with their switch whereby a lot of incoming calls went to voicemail. I personally found the voice quality to be incredibly good, though I am told by Telecard people that they need many more Base stations in Karachi. Maybe, as a user of PTCL and Mobilink services, I have gotten used to bad service.
There is no sign of any local loop service from Worldcall. However that is understandable as they have problems enough running their Internet over Cable service.
0 Comments:
