Week In Review: Week ending on Saturday, the 19th of July, 2008
Saturday, July 19, 2008 17:08PTCL workers went on strike against PTCL management in across the whole country. Every office and PTCL Exchange remained locked, which created troubles for PTCL subscribers. The phone line and internet were unavailable in several regions of Pakistan and it affected business industries, banks, media as well as an ordinary Internet and telephone subscriber. The technical staff was also not present, which worsened the situation.
Prime Minister, Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani constituted a four-member ministerial committee to resolve the dispute between PTCL management and employees. PPP leader Chaudhry Manzoor Ahmed, who is also the head of labor wing of the party, said that he had a meeting with the Prime Minister in which he apprised him about the issue.
The committee will be submitting its findings to the prime minister within two days after investigating the matter thoroughly, he said, adding that the committee members will be meeting PTCL workers shortly.
The employees have been protesting against the Unified Pay Scale but the management doesn’t seem to agree. But according to current circumstances, they do not have any other option. PTCL has hardly re-established itself in the tough telecom market and raised its customers bar. Mobile phone operators are already dominant over PTCL and such situation can spoil the rest of its customer ship.
After three days of its start, it was heard that Unified Pay Scale has been withdrawn but the workers still went on strikes and demanded for a written agreement. However, a few unions of workers, after hearing the withdrawal of Unified Pay Scale, unlocked their offices.
The issue hasn’t yet solved and PTCL has appealed for security in Supreme Court. The Government has asked the seniors to organize a meeting and dispute this issue but the meetings that have been held so far, have failed.
Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has decided to reinvestigate PTCL privatization issue and the leaders of PPP intend to discuss PTCL’s Privatization in National Assembly of Pakistan.
People’s Labor Bureau Chief, Chaudry Manzoor Ahmed addressed a press conference and said that a petition will be submitted against PTCL privatization in National Assembly and if necessary, PPP will file an FIR against former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and same for Former IT minister, Owais Leghari.
Zong, after facilitating a huge population of Muzaffarabad and AJ Kashmir, launched its services in Gwadar and Jiwani. Gwadar is gaining special attention for marketers and business personnel and because of its superb location, the chances for telecom growth have increased in this city. On the other hand, Jiwani has been suffering from lack of telecom as well as several modern technologies for years. Zong is the first mobile phone operator that has launched its services in this city, which is a blessing for the dwellers.
The launching ceremony took place in Gawadar, where it received a huge response from the audience. There is a big opportunity for Zong and its services are actually going to expand in these cities.
Samsung has increased the number of its products by introducing latest series of Fax-machines. The latest addition includes Sf-370 series, featuring the latest add-ons and simplifying the whole process of transmission of faxes, and using phone on the same line. That makes it effective in use as well as in affordability. Its 23 % smaller than its previous models and it is easy to fit in a small workstation.
It is smaller, simple, quicker and it is something that workstations desperately need for speeding your business processes up. Try it!
For brining the latest innovative banking applications for the sake of business improvement, Askari Bank has been finalizing a deal with Oracle. The deal has been done now and it has resulted in a notable upgradation in Askari Bank’s several processes.
The applications that have been deployed in Askari bank include Oracle’s Flexcube Universal Banking Solutions, Reveleues Basel II solutions and CRM.
The aim was to acquire satisfaction of customers and customers are indeed satisfied. Several Banks are moving to Oracle’s solutions and the rate is continuously increasing worldwide.
Senator Talha Mahmood Aryan, Chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on Interior, has once again warned the mobile SIMs providers to stop illegal sale of SIMs. According to him, all those mobile phone connections, which are registered on bogus IDs or are not registered at all, will be permanently blocked. After 1st of August, anyone involved in the illegal sale of SIMs will be served with strict action from the Government.
An amount of rupees 350 million has been announced as a charge for the guilt of illegal sale of SIMs.
Sindh Health Minister, Dr. Saghir Ahmed has directed the concerned authorities to computerize all the entries of medicine and other equipments that are being provided to Government hospitals of Sindh. The whole network will be connected to a Government’s PC, where it will be easy to examine the required and consumed entries, which will enhance the provision of medicines, beds and several other hospital needs. For that reason, the entire health sector is being digitized by deploying IT application.
Sindh Health Minister Dr Saghir Ahmed has directed the concerned authorities to computerize entries of medicines and other equipment in all of the government hospitals in the province to control theft and abuse of supplies.
A famous Japanese IT company is eager to fund 47 million dollars in Karachi, which will provide 3,000 jobs for IT professional in Pakistan. The major projects include Software Development, Call Centers, Data Center and Business Consulting Centers.
The delegation met Rauf Siddiqui, Minister of Commerce and Industries, and briefed their projects and the future prospects in Pakistan.
These projects will start very soon and the Government is fully cooperating with the Japanese company. Minister has also directed to provide lands to the delegation as soon as it is possible.
NComputing is the central Desktop Virtualization Solution Provider and recently it has elected NConnexion to as its official distributor for Pakistan and Afghanistan. NConnexion will provide technical facilities to independent resellers of NComputing for provision of efficient services.
With this agreement, NComputing would be able to help business institutes and grow its networking in the adjoining regions. Pakistan will also be able to have greater access to NComputing services.
City District Government Karachi has deployed Airspan’s 4.9 GHz WiMAX solutions for its IP Closed Circuits Television Surveillance Project in Karachi. With this deployment, CDGK will be able to monitor all major city roads.
Wireless Local Loop (WLL) subscribers’ base has widened by 22 % in the country amid reticent growth and healthy competition among its operators during 2007-08.
Data compiled by Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA) reported that the number of WLL subscribers has increased to 2.26 million during outgoing fiscal year 2007-08, against the subscriber base of 1.85 million during 2006-08, adding around 410,524 subscribers in a year.
In absolute terms total number of WLL subscribers stands at 2,260,758 during July to June 2008, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) figures show.
PTCL (Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited) has larger share with 1.18 million customers followed by TeleCard, with 512,846 subscribers in tele-service market. WorldCall had 487,387 WLL subscribers and Great Bear was serving 51,280 connections by the end of 2007-08.
New WLL entrants who launched nationwide services in 2007 are Wateen, Burraq and Mytel collectively serve 20,829 subscribers. Wateen holds impressive market share of 20,289 subscriber followed by Burraq and Mytel that have 400 and 140 subscribers.
