Govt to fully facilitate telecom equipment manufacturers: Jahangir Tareen
Tuesday September 27, 2005 (1439 PST)

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Industries, Production and Special Initiatives Jahangir Khan Tareen said on Tuesday that government will extend all possible support to the telecom equipment manufacturers in their pursuit of achieving excellence.

Minister stated this on the occurrence of two-day exhibition on "Telecom Engineering 2005" organized by the engineering development board in collaboration with Pakistan Telecom manufacturers Association.

Minister said that government was committed to provide all kind of help as government considered it as strategic infrastructure in achieving the national goals." The unprecedented development in the telecom sector is going to generate significant engineering activity for the indigenous telecom equipment manufacturers, he added.

He said telecom sector was vanguard of the economic development in the country at the back of revolution in IT and convergence of IT and telecommunication technologies.

He further said serious endeavor was needed to prepare our engineering sector for global competition and promote the export of engineering sector and services.

He urged private engineering sector to enhance their competitiveness, skill and productivity and government was committed to attain a leading edge in the engineering industry as Pakistan had good talent and skill.

"Quality and competitiveness of engineering products have to be ensured due to their pivotal role in creating demands," minister added.

On the occasion, CEO Engineering Development Board Imtiaz A Rastgar said that the event provided an opportunity to the telecom equipment manufacturers to pitch their products at a large number of telecom companies in Pakistan as well as local traders who would be interested to collaborate with them for exporting economical Pakistani products in the world market.
- posted @ Tuesday, September 27, 2005

 
Gone Phishing
Got an interesting email today. Someone phishing for Bank Al-Falah bank cards.

There is a link to http://alfalah.updatingprivateinfo.com/ and the email 'demands' that you go in there, enter your Bank card info and PIN! The fraudulent site is really well made copy of the original http://www.bankalfalah.com/ , right down to the non-working 'contact us' page!

The point of the excercise is for you to enter your Bank card number and PIN. The fraudia will then make a Bank card copy and start to take money out of your Bank account.

Quite simple.

A real Bank will call you up or just shut down your account.

The email is below.


=========================================

Sub: Be confident you're protected with Bank Alfalah's BankSecure
From: Bank Alfalah Security Team
To:
Date: Yesterday 22:30:12

Dear Bank Alfalah's Account Holder,

During our regularly scheduled account maintenance and verification procedures, we were unable to verify your account information. This might be due to either one of the following reasons: 1. A recent change in your personal information (ie change of address). 2. Submitting invalid information during the initial enrollment process. 3. An inability to accurately verify your account information due to an internal error within our processors.

We demand that you take 5 minutes out of your online experience and renew your records to avoid running into any future problems with the online service. However, failure to update your records will result in your account suspension. Once you have updated your account records your internet banking service will not be interrupted and will continue as normal.

Please follow the link below and renew your account information.

http://www.bankalfalah.com/update/verify/ [link:http://alfalah.updatingprivateinfo.com/]



Thank you for your patience.
Sincerely, Bank Alfalah's Customer Service

- posted @ Friday, September 16, 2005

 
Grey market telephony: PTA issues policy guidelines to ISPs
The PTA is pretending that VoIP is illegal (it isn't, though some applications are for most people) and that ISPs are a bunch of bureaucrats with nothing better to do than to give the PTA a lot of reports every month....

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KARACHI (September 15 2005): Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has issued policy guidelines for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to handle the issues of grey market telephony and security concerns.

According to documents made available here, some unscrupulous elements were indulging in illegal commercial activities of establishing exchanges for terminating international calls in the local networks of the licensed operators.

The media used for this illegal activity is mostly unlicensed Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), hence there was an urgent need to eliminate the menace of such illegal activities of "grey market telephony".

The document further said that to address the issues of "grey market telephony" and "security concerns", the Federal government under Section 23 and 31, and Sub-section (1) and (2) of Section 54 of Pakistan Telecommunication (Reorganisation) Act 1996, issued the following guidelines for its strict compliance with immediate effect:

-- Licensed operator will be responsible for the correctness of the antecedents of their clients.

-- Every licensed operator will keep and maintain valid, updated record of its clients and users having dedicated bandwidth. The database should contain following information regarding assigned Public Static Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, which includes name, company name, NIC and NTN number for the purpose of bandwidth.

-- Every licensed operator will intimate the PTA on monthly basis about allocation of Public Static IP addresses to any client.

-- All licensed operators will submit a summary of users (having bandwidth equal to or in excess of 128 kbps), and who fall under the following criteria:

-- All those clients using bandwidth in symmetric format meaning thereby that difference between their incoming and outgoing traffic is minimal.

-- The ISPs will also oversee their client's bandwidth usage and will ensure that it is not being used to transport voice.

-- All ISPs will evolve their Standard Operating Procedure (SOP)/ measures and implement these to make sure that they do not allow the VoIP, illegal international call terminations and other such unauthorised activities.

Sources in the ISPs circle said no service providers had violated any law or abated in activation/termination of any call regarding such matter.

The licensees have been made responsible for the correctness of the statement of the third party, failing which the authority will take action under the Evidence Act or Penal Code against the licensees.

The licensees have been asked to submit monthly summary of users having more than 128 Kbps bandwidth containing information such as symmetric user of bandwidth and oversee the client's bandwidth usage and will ensure that voice is not transported.

The source said: "It appears that there is a total lack of knowledge on the part of the PTA about the Internet usage. For instance, use of "White Board" application in Microsoft NetMeeting, Interactive Games, Yahoo, MSN and Google Voice or Text Chat will all create Symmetric Bandwidth usage. The Internet is used for purposes other than Web browsing and e-mails."

The sources stated that network service provider means an intermediary and a PTA's licensee does not posses power of police to enforce its wishes on its clients or force a prospective customer to tell the "truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth".

By issuing numerous LDI licences with very little rollout, the authority has provided ample opportunity for call-activation and termination in the market and no sane person needs to use the DSL or any other means to carry the VoIP.

The sources said that no call-activation or termination in this country was possible without the will of incumbent (PTCL) as yet. What is needed is to put a strong security measure at the incumbent's network and on the gateways of the LDIs to monitor all aspects of the traffic without hassle.

It could be safely argued that the "VoIP" is an "invention" and needs to be recognised and taken into account, if the grey, red or blue traffic was to be stopped.

The solution lay not with the policing but a determined policy, needed to fully regularise the VoIP, with or without levies and taxes, the sources said.


Copyright Business Recorder, 2005
- posted @ Thursday, September 15, 2005

 
No backtracking on policies, Awais tells South Asia mobiles summit
ISLAMABAD: Minister for Information Technology Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari Thursday said the government was in the process of legislation aimed at checking "anti-competitive behaviour, facilitate growth and ensure continuity of policies" in the telecom sector.

"We are aggressively working on the data protection act and the e-crime bill alongside several other key initiatives to ensure the telecom sector kept up its growth and achieve new milestones in the coming days," he said in a keynote address to the two-day 2nd South Asia Mobiles Summit 2005 that started in the capital here.

The minister told delegates from South Asian nations Pakistan's telecom sector was in the midst of an exponential growth with over 1 million new mobile phone subscribers being added every month. "During the consultancy process with the World Bank ahead of the mobile cellular policy last year, we were told by the World Bank the tele-density in Pakistan would reach 10 per cent in the next five years but by the grace of God we have crossed the mark within one year with out tele density going past 11 per cent," he added.

He told the delegates that only a couple of years ago a call made from Islamabad to Karachi used to cost around Rs 40 but now the companies were offering such a call facility for less than Rs 4 which reflected on the scale of growth witnessed in the sector in recent years.

He said that while mobile phone was popular within the urban limits, it was gaining a more robust response in the rural areas where its affordability had attracted a large section of the rural population to get connected. "Besides affordable rates, another reason for this fast-paced roll out of telecom services is a growing purchasing power in the countryside," he added.

Awais Leghari believed that as competition grew in the sector, the prices would come down further while the quality of services and products would go up for its being the major factor for companies to stay competitive in the market. "I foresee Pakistan emerging as an interesting place in the next few years for investors in the area of infrastructure development," he said.

He said the country did face some problems with regard to international connectivity but that phase was over and the country was set to get connected with a new submarine cable next month. "We are also about to be linked with India through optic fibre while two to three backbone systems other than that of PTCL are also under way," he said.

He said the government would table in the parliament the proposed universal service fund in the next couple of weeks to make it operational. "This fund for which every telecom operator contributes 1.5 per cent of its revenue, would be up for use for the telecom companies to reach out to far-flung and thinly-populated areas," he said.

Awais said the government was also considering giving incentives to companies to promote infrastructure sharing. "We are not complacent at the buoyant telecom sector … we are keeping a close watch and would be quick to bring out incentive-based policies without changing the spirit of the existing policies which would stay for their stipulated periods," he said.

He described PTCL's privatization as the biggest achievement of the government which had the necessary political will and the heart to complete the privatization process. "With the sector liberalized now, I hope the competition remains healthy and it is sustained to a point where it does not hurt the growth," he said.

Earlier addressing the inaugural session, member telecom ministry of information technology Nooruddin Baqai said Pakistan had made considerable progress in the telecom sector but there was still enough room for improvement and efforts were afoot to harness the potential of ICTs to achieve betterment of the masses.

Babar A Khan, chief executive of Ufone, also threw light on development leading to what he called a massive expansion of the telecom sector. He said his company alone had added 2.4 million new subscribers since July 2004 with its coverage reaching 180 cities and highway routes.

Rashid Khan of Mobilink said the telecom operators in Pakistan were set to face various challenges including a rapid network roll out, development of associated industries, sourcing capital from the domestic and international market, development of backbone infrastructure and managing growth, including talent management and process standardization.
- posted @ Friday, September 09, 2005

 
Deregulation process will continue to further boost national economy: Aziz
ISLAMABAD, September 09 (Online): Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has announced that the deregulation process will continue to further stabilize national economy besides establishing the country on modern lines.

He said this while addressing the inauguration ceremony of the highest telecommunication tower in the federal capital on Thursday.

Prime Minister held that various sectors of economy were flourishing due to the deregulation policy being pursued by the government. " Our telecom sector is fast making headway. Although certain elements were opposed to the privatization of PTCL. But this sector has further developed in the wake of deregulation process. It will lead to boost the business, he underlined.

He went on to say that six mobile companies were operating at present and every company had paid $291 million to Pakistan under the license head.

He maintained that the government was following credible reforms agenda. The number of mobile phone set holders stand at 13 million now in the country. About one Lakh consumers add to the them every month. Pakistan now stands next to China in telecom sector, he indicated. The investors are evincing keen interest to make investment in this field, he added. The phone calls rates have come down considerably following the creation of climate of competitiveness in the country. The consumers are benefiting from it," he underscored.

Citing to telecommunication tower project he said it is a mega project. If the construction work is carried out with planning, it can save 30 percent energy. More buildings on this fashion will be constructed in federal capital. The prices of land will further escalate in Islamabad in the next fifteen years. Therefore we will construct high rise building to make up for the deficiency of land, he stated.

Prime Minister pointed out that country was facing shortage of technical experts and every sector was complaining about it. Government was taking solid measures to ensure provision of technical experts to this country. Vocational training institutes were being set up in this connection, he told.

He noted that construction work and real state are the key means of employment for the people. Government was using all the available resources to curb the menace of unemployment.

Minister for information technology Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari said that plot was acquired from CDA ten year back for the construction of tele tower. However the process of construction was stalled due to lack of funds, he indicated. With the sincere efforts of the Prime Minister, the construction work on this highest building of Islamabad has started and the tower would be completed within the two and a half year span of time.

Information technology ministry was fully alive to its obligations, he said adding this tower would cater to our needs.

Outlining the salient features of tower he said that the 24-story tele tower Pakistan would be constructed under Pakistan Telecom Employees trust. The offices of IT, Telecom, high tech and PTCL will be set up in this tower, he informed. The tower will have four basements and its standard will match with that of international buildings. 25 companies will build this tower.
- posted @ Friday, September 09, 2005