What, no internet? Gossip time
Ok, so it is now Day 5 after the SMW3 was cut and as we don't have any work to do, its gossip time.

[1] There were joint USA - Pakistan Navy excersises going on at around the same time as the cable was cut. Coincidence? Of course we dont know exactly where the excersises were but we can speculate as to how close it was to the site of the cable cut....

[2] Most major bandwidth customers have some connectivity restored as PTCL has bought in emergency satellite connections. Most, but not the National IT Park in Karachi. This is housed on 5 floors of Caesers Tower and after many years of emptiness has just started to fill up with Call Centers and Software Houses. The IT Park has its own ISP (called OK Net, run by a certain Mr. Khurshed Shah) that has a fibre optic connection to PTCLs Marston Road exchange. This connection has been paid for by PTCL and PSEB. OK Net customers have purchased a total of 8MB bandwidth. OK Net has only 4MB of its own, but that is, ahem, OK as the software houses work during the day and the Call Centers during the night.
Ok, so why no connectivity when all other IT Parks have had theirs restored? Is it because Karachi is discriminated against? Is it because this is a private company? No. The reason is that Mr. Khursheed has only purchased 128K (thats K as in Kilo not M as in Mega) officially. The rest of the 4MB is, ahem, not officially purchased.
So when the emergency bandwidth is provided it is given out to people who officially bought their bandwidth. Those using the 'kunda' system will have to start using dialup.


[3] Some info just in from Islamabad - Mian Jawed who used to head up PTCL, then the PTA and recently PEMRA has been approached by Etisalat to become Chairman of PTCL again. There are a few decent people at the top in Islamabad. Mian Sahib is one of them.
- posted @ Saturday, July 02, 2005