Teletimes April 2011.pdf

The only tri-regional magazine focused towards the IT & Telecom sectors of The Middle East, Asia and Africa 

COMEX 2011 

IT, Telecom & Technology Show 

(Muscat, 25-29 April) 

Invests heavily 

in the development of 

core mobile technology 

“We have a national strategy 

called Digital Oman and E-Oman 

Talal Sulaiman Al Rahbi 

Deputy CEO, IT Authority - Oman 

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Interviews 

16 

“We have a national strategy 

called Digital Oman and E-Oman 

Talal Sulaiman Al Rahbi, Dy CEO, IT Authority - Oman 

Khalid Athar 

In this issue 

32 

“We invest heavily in the development of core mobile 

technology..” 

Raheel Kamal, Head of Business Operations for Central Asia, Qualcomm 

Gulraiz Khalid 

Reports & News 

24 

40 

43 

44 

45 

46 

47 

47 

49 

53 

54 

54 

58 

59 

60 

62 

Oman awards third licence to Sama Telecom 

SamaTel granted full licence as Sultan Qaboos promises more jobs 

Etisalat general assembly 

approves dividends at 60% 

FTTH Council Europe 

to further address the urgent need for FTTH with new initiatives 

Batelco and du 

enter into interconnection partnership 

Du launches 

42 Mbps internet key 

O3b Networks 

aiming to bring Broadband to poorer countries 

Amman is unlikely hotspot 

for technology startups 

8th Media and Telecom Convergence 

Conference 2011 getting strong support 

Content distribution and IP 

agreement will enable increased Middle East connectivity 

Jaffer Brothers and Acision 

partner to market and distribute mobile data 

solutions in Afghanistan 

PTCL and ADG LDI sign 

WLL Business Promotion Agreement 

Techaccess awarded VMware’s Enterprise level 

Hassan Shabbir 

Alcatel-Lucent 

releases new communications server 

PAKSAT 

set to launch new satellite 

PTCL’s Naveed Saeed wins 

APNS’ best corporate communication and PR award 

Farah Hussain 

New Nawras Business Group 

gives free national calls and SMS for 3 months 

Julie Amann 

4331 

24 

04 www.teletimesinternational.com 

15Apr - 14May 2011

In this issue 

43 

Research & Analyses 

09 

22 

23 

42 

55 

Child Online Protection 

Mohammed Amir Malik 

Bringing 

cloud computing back to earth 

Cross Connect 

Tom Wilson 

Talking shop 

Josep Que 

Capturing value in the mHealth oasis 

An opportunity for mobile network operators 

Dr. Karim Taga 

60 

Special Reports 

21 

26 

31 

38 

COMEX-2011 

Oman’s biggest IT, Telecom & Technology show around the corner 

Ehab Al Hindawi 

SAMENA’s Broadband Summit 

debates growth strategies and futue internet challenges 

Mohammad Hijab 

Measured approach 

STC group’s international expension... 

Roger Field 

19th Convergence India 2011 Expo 

highlights growing significance of Broadband 

Hena Ahmad 

and much more .... 

32 

15Apr - 14May 2011 

www.teletimesinternational.com 

05

Letter to readers 

Khalid Athar 

Chief Editor 

Dear readers, 

Welcome to the new edition of Teletimes. 

As you must be well aware of the fact that 

for the past few months we have been 

making efforts for the intensive expansion 

of Teletimes; the good news is that the 

International Office for Teletimes has been 

established in Muscat (Oman) which will 

operate on a global level. Besides that, two 

regional offices have also been established 

in Riyadh and Giza. The Riyadh Office will 

deal with KSA, Bahrain and Kuwait and the 

Giza (Egypt) office will look after Teletimes 

interests in the North African Countries. 

Soon Teletimes Bureau Offices will be 

opened in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria as 

well. 

More good news, which in fact is also very 

encouraging for Teletimes’ team is that Dr. 

Alaa Bader Al Hindawi has joined our Board 

of Advisors. 

Dr. A. B. Hindawi is one the most proficient 

and dynamic people in the telecom industry 

today. In addition to his extraordinary 

personality, he has received high education 

from different institutions. He got a 

Bachelors degree in Economics, and later 

completed his Masters in the same subject, 

after which he did his PhD in Crisis 

Management 

Dr. Hindawi has worked in Saudi Arabia 

and the GCC, where he was responsible for 

markets in the Middle East, North Africa 

and Asia Pacific regions before coming to 

Oman to start his own company. He has 

worked for Telecom equipment vendors, 

service providers and also as a consultant 

to operators. 

This edition of Teletimes has been 

dedicated to COMEX 2011 which will take 

place from 25th to 29th of April in Muscat. 

COMEX is Oman’s premier event for the IT, 

telecom & technology industry. Teletimes is 

the media partner of COMEX 2011 for the 

2nd consecutive year. 

The SAMENA Telecommunications 

council is organizing ‘Beyond Connectivity 

Conference 2011’ in Abu Dhabi from the 

25th of April till the 27th. As the media 

partner of SAMENA Telecom Council, 

Teletimes will maintain its presence in the 

event. The next edition will contain postevent 

reports on the Beyond Connectivity 

Conference and COMEX 2011. 

This edition contains a post-event report 

on one of the Asia’s biggest events, 

‘Convergence India 2011’, which took place 

on 24th and 25th March 2011 in New Delhi. 

Teletimes has been a media partner of 

‘Convergence India 2011’ for the last three 

years. This edition also contains a report 

on SAMENA Telecommunications Council’s 

Broadband Summit which took place in 

Muscat on 7th March 2011. 

As always, this edition of Teletimes 

contains two important interviews. The 

first, of Mr. Talal Sulaiman Al Rahbi, 

Deputy CEO, IT Authority, Oman, and 

the second of Mr. Raheel Kamal, Head 

of Business Operations for Central Asia, 

Qualcomm. 

Amir Malik has contributed his writing 

on a very important topic, “Child Online 

Protection”, which will be will very 

interesting for all readers. Tom’s Corner 

contains an informative article titled 

“Cross Connect” by Thomas Wilson, CEO, 

SAMENA. 

Arthur D. Little’s report, “Capturing value in 

the mHealth Oasis” compiled by Dr. Karim 

Taga is also part of this edition along with 

numerous reports regarding Etisalat, STC, 

FTTH Council, du, Nawrus, Batelco, Thuraya, 

PakSat, O3b Networks, COMMSCOPE, 

PTCL, Synchronica and Alcatel-Lucent. 

We will be awaiting feedback from our 

readers and sponsors as always so that we 

may continue to make better Teletimes for 

you! 

Please enjoy this edition of TELETIMES. 

15Apr - 14May 2011 


07

Child 

Online 

Protection 

This Paper investigates the 

potential online threats to 

children and measures required 

to oppress such threats in the 

developing Internet nations. The 

paper not only culminates the 

thoughts, feelings and concerns 

of young people and their parents 

over the use of technology, 

but also concludes the survey 

carried out in Pakistan in Oct 

2010 on Child Online protection, 

encompassing all the salient 

features as were envisaged by 

ITU in its COP National Survey 

Report. The paper also highlights 

the current status of Child online 

Protection in Pakistan and necessary 

way forward based on a 

National Survey. 

Introduction 

Amid all the Information and 

communication technologies of 

this era, the most imperative, 

cost effective and prompt information 

dissemination novelty 

is “The Internet”, not only it 

has become an essential fraction 

of the global information 

society, but has also nurtured 

the overall economic growth by 

creating new jobs, encouraging 

modernization and improving 

national competitiveness. It is 

an amazing means of communication 

which can web information 

across the globe and offer it 

to any nook and cranny. It is a 

multi flavor stage soo open that 

anyone, anywhere, anytime can 

jump into it for instance paying 

electricity bills, downloading a 

multimedia video, playing an 

online game, advertising your 

product, checking the status of 

shipment, applying for a job, 

developing social networking, 

providing electronic government 

services and enabling economical 

VoIP for remote areas and 

so on. Recent phenomenon of 

information based society has 

evolved almost all age-groups 

and sectors of an economy, 

though internet. 

At the same time the Internet is 

also described as an unlegislated 

space for abandoned content. 

It is a source of obscene and 

obnoxious material, religious 

secularism, a growing threat to 

personal privacy, largest source 

of harmful computer viruses and 

an infringement of copyrights. 

These issues are undisputedly 

affecting the children, who at 

this phase of life possess immaturity 

and can portray a wrong 

analysis and objective to things, 

if not presented correctly. This 

paper examines the potential 

online threats to children and 

measures required to confiscate 

such threats in a developing 

nation like Pakistan, where 

digital divide and access are still 

more of bigger problems than 

the subject at hand. Moreover, 

the paper also highlights some 

of the salient features of the 

survey carried out in Oct 2010 

in Pakistan relating the subject 

matter. 

The World of Cyber Age 

The communication media 

today has major influence on 

our lives, the way we think, 

react and behave somehow is 

influenced by the media. Minors 

and sometimes even adults do 

not apply critical thinking to 

contents. They are unable to 

strike a balance between risks 

and opportunities offered by 

online contents. Social demands 

and cultural variability though 

pose a potential influence on 

Mohammed Amir Malik 

the control of contents in a 

particular country, however the 

issue of child online protection 

has been mandated by almost 

all quarters. A close look at the 

internet and its growth trends in 

developed and developing countries 

is necessary to culminate 

opinion about the issues of this 

ever growing Cyber World. 

The Internet has shown a 

phenomenal growth in terms 

of subscription over last few 

15Apr - 14May 2011 


09

years. Today, worldwide Internet 

users are over 600 million users 

in Asia, 130 million in Latin 

America and the Caribbean, and 

50 million in Africa.(Source ITU: 

ICT Indicators database2008). 

The following graphs depicts 

the global Internet subscription 

growth in terms of various 

modes of Internet provisioning 

from 2003-2009. The comparison 

is presented separately 

for developed and developing 

countries. The comparison depicts 

that if the mobile internet 

subscriptions are on the rise in 

developed world then for developing 

countries fixed internet 

subscriptions are periodically on 

the rise too. 

Definition of “Child” 

Various nations have defined 

“child”, However most of the 

countries have defined it as 

someone below the age of 18. In 

Pakistan various definitions of 

child exist: 

1. According to the Article. 11. 

The Constitution of Islamic 

Republic of Pakistan, 1973.- S. 

3 (1). Definitions.- The Punjab 

Destitute and Neglected Children 

Act, 2004 (Pb. Act XVIII 

of 2004), child is defined as 

(e)“child” means a natural 

person who has not attained the 

age of eighteen years. 

2. Also in The Pakistan Penal 

Code, 1860 (Act XLV of 1860) 

S. 299. Definitions.- 

(a) “adult” means a person who 

has attained the age of eighteen 

years; 

(i) “minor” means a person who 

is not an adult. 

3. Convention 182 of the International 

Labour Convention on’ 

Elimination of the Worst Forms 

of Child Labour’ defines a child 

as “anyone under the age of 18”. 

4. Also The United Nations ‘Optional 

Protocol to the Convention 

on the Rights of the Child 

defines a child as anyone under 

the age of 18 unless majority is 

attained at an earlier age under 

the applicable law. 

The definition of a child referred 

here within this document is “a 

person who is below 18 years of 

age”. However it must be kept in 

mind that age, grade and gender 

of a child also matters as for 

instance children with premature 

mind sets may often be visiting 

the political websites and 

activists might be using them 

for radical activities in a country. 

The same is a very intense issue 

as far as Pakistan is concerned. 

Similarly according to various 

studies both genders exhibit different 

patterns of website visits. 

Emerging problems 

Since internet has no boundaries 

so the issue has to be solved 

globally. Nevertheless there are 

certain problems that relate to 

or within the boundaries of a 

specific country. It is the responsibility 

of every country to flag 

such issues so that they could be 

dealt in a fair way. For instance 

in a developed world a child 

may be naïve enough to land 

in a website or content which 

is not permitted for a child of 

his age, and invariably he might 

develop a wrong understanding 

of things and harm himself. On 

the other hand in a developing 

country like Pakistan an 

immature mind might land into 

a website which exhibits racism 

and religious discord. These sites 

inflict hatred and extremism 

which ultimately have daring 

consequences on not only that 

kid but he might end up in a 

suicide attack, thereby harming 

himself and hundreds of others. 

So this is a different yet imperative 

dimension of protecting 

young children online. 

In this day and age when 

children have access to camera 

phones, wireless hot spots and 

easy-to-hide computer chips 

that can store vast collections of 

content, they are more vulnerable 

to risks, since any and every 

kind of information is available 

for them and that too all 

the times. Children in the age 

bracket of 6-14 years are most 

vulnerable to risks, one of the 

reasons for this is the loss of 

the parental control. Parental 

control is difficult to emphasize 

because in most of the situations, 

since in most of the cases 

both of the parents are working 

and it is kind of difficult for 

them to monitor the activities 

of their kids. On the other hand 

in a developing world there is a 

vast majority of parents who are 

not educated at all, and mostly 

it’s their first generation who is 

attending schools or have access 

to any sort of online information. 

In such cases the parents/ 

guardians are naive enough to 

know what sorts of information 

their kid is exposed to? What 

could be the potential harms 

that this information could 

inflict? The kid might be in a 

regular contact with a person 

or group online, who could very 

easily brain wash an immature 

mind and the result could be 

devastating at the end. Also it 

is a very common practice these 

days to seek advice online, since 

kids would like to share and get 

opinions about things which 

they might not as otherwise be 

comfortable talking with their 

parents. So it is very essential 

that the content should be 

monitored that could potentially 

harm minors, and not only 

parents but teachers should also 

play an active role for identifying 

issues and problems that 

could threat children. 

Importance of Parenting 

Parents who are fairly firm and 

consistent in their expectations 

of how their children should be- 


15Apr - 14May 2011

have but who are also warm and 

affectionate and respect their 

children’s opinions tend to produce 

competent and self-reliant 

preschoolers. When parents 

are very controlling and more 

concerned with their own needs 

than with those of their children, 

their offspring may be fairly 

self-controlled not very secure 

or confident in their approach to 

new situations or other people. 

Very permissive parents, who 

neither reward responsible behavior 

nor discourage immature 

behavior, produce youngsters 

with the least self-reliance and 

self-control. In short, competence 

and self-confidence 

in young children seem best 

fostered by a warm and nurturing 

home where parents reward 

responsible behavior but also 

encourage independent action 

and decision making (Baumrind, 

15Apr - 14May 2011 


11

1972). “Treat them (children) as 

though they were young adult. 

Dress them; bathe them with 

care and circumspection. Let 

your behavior always be objective 

and kindly firm” (Watson, 

1928). 

Child Online Protection –ITU 

Concepts and Concerns 

With the growing advent of 

contemporary internet technologies, 

the scale of use and online 

threats has also galvanized. 

These threats are not only harming 

minors but also resulting 

in damaging the confidence of 

parents, and the last they can 

think of is banning the kid from 

Internet accessibility. This might 

not pose a very good solution, 

since internet on the other hand 

is also adding to the knowledge 

of the kids, and in this day and 

age when the use of libraries is 

scarce and most of the knowledge 

that children acquire is 

either through schools, parents 

or internet or any other communication 

media that is available 

to them, it should be considered 

important to regulate the access 

of information to these kids, by 

scrutinizing first what should be 

termed right and what should 

be termed wrong for them. It 

may also be kept in kind that 

according to various surveys the 

children that are most at risk are 

among the age group of 6-14 

years because of the neglect of 

parental control. 

ITU has sketched a vivid picture 

of the actors involved in the 

measurement of Child Online 

Protection and relationship between 

these actors. These actors 

involve Children, Parents and 

Guardians, Educators, Governments, 

Industry Players and 

perpetrators. 

The ease with which information 

can be accessed via cyber 

space has several social and 

cultural ramifications. Some 

of the online threats faced by 

Children are. 

a. Sexual Abuse 

While on-line world exploration 

opens a whole new world of opportunities 

for children, expanding 

their horizons and enhancing 

their knowledge and vision, it 

is widely believed that they can 

also be exposed to dangers as 

they drive on the road of Internet, 

the information highway. 

There have been number of 

incidents where individuals have 

attempted to sexually exploit 

children through the use of online 

services and the Internet. 

These individuals gain necessary 

attention gradually through use 

of affection, kindness, and even 

gifts. These individuals attempt 

to gradually attain the concentration 

of these new users of 

online-world by slowly introducing 

sexual context and content 

into their conversations. 

b. Privacy Issue 

Children are a highly marketed 

segment of the consumer 

population. Advertisers and 

marketers can use the Internet 

to target children and gather 

personal information from them 

for marketing purposes. Furthermore, 

the present boom of 

social networking has also raised 

the concern of privacy among 

teenagers where at times they 

are not at all aware of what kind 

of information should be posted 

by them and what number of 

audience may fetch their private 

information. Here in Pakistan a 

number of such complaints have 

been received where some very 

private information of kids was 

shared online resulting in deep 

stress to parents. 

When children visit commercial 

web sites, they might be tempted 

to fill out surveys, exchange 


15Apr - 14May 2011

personal information for gifts, 

register for club memberships, 

sign up to receive games, and 

give up personal information in 

chat rooms. All of these information 

fetching techniques are 

affecting kids. 

c. Exposure to inappropriate Images 

and Content 

The open nature of Internet 

with regards to access of any 

particular type of content is 

what presently could be taken 

as a very serious challenge to 

protect our kids online. It’s as 

simple as putting a sexual word 

inside a search engine and getting 

thousands of pages inviting 

to browse the relevant content. 

This exposure to inappropriate 

images and content is more 

unsafe in developing countries 

like ours, where this upcoming 

generation of teenagers has an 

access to Internet at private 

places like net clubs with no 

restriction at all. Moreover, the 

parents generally are almost unaware 

of Internet and its usage; 

thus they are not able to guide 

their children about the pros and 

cons of open Internet access. 

Measuring the Child Online 

Safety 

Given the multitude of happenings 

and activities related 

to use of internet by Children, 

concerns in regards to sufficient 

and coordinated input, efficient 

and effective processes for child 

online protection arise, these 

concerns should enlighten us in 

terms of how well we are doing 

and what else should be done. 

Question arises, can we measure 

the efficiency and effectiveness 

of Child Online Safety? Here 

comes the critical value of “process 

indicators” that articulate 

where do we stand and how to 

improve on certain areas, what 

areas need attention and how 

to emphasize efficiency and 

effectiveness to these areas. On 

International forums, various 

discussions and methodologies 

are being developed on kinds of 

data that need to be collected, 

benchmarks that need to be 

established? All of these issues 

could be tackled through coordinated 

approach. 

Survey on Child Online Protection 

Assessment in Pakistan 

(Oct 2010) 

M/s Paradigm Technologies 

(private research company) carried 

out survey in Oct 2010 to 

assess and investigate Internet 

usage and its trends among age 

group of 8-18 years. The survey 

was carried out inline with ITU’s 

indicators outlined in “Child 

online protection CoP Initiative”. 

The survey also measured 

and evaluated online risks and 

opportunities. 

A sample size of 1,127 was 

considered. Sample size included 

717 Parents and guardians, 300 

teachers and 200 kids. The 

samples were collected through 

a face-to-face interaction 

through a survey form and also 

through online survey form. The 

key findings of the survey are 

summarized below along with 

graphical representation. 

According to the survey, home 

Internet access to children is 

quite high. 89% of the survey 

participants told that their kids 

in different age groups are using 

Internet at home. The interesting 

fact is that young children 

from 8-14 age groups are having 

a growing usage pattern for the 

Internet which shows a requirement 

for evaluating the ‘Child 

Online Protection’ policy framework 

inside the country. 

Several questions were asked 

to measure the level of attention 

parents confer to assess the 

online activities of their children. 

Responses show that generally 

parents are not attentive 

towards the online issues that 

are putting their children at risk. 

They are also not interested in 

monitoring their children online 

habits at large, the primary reason 

behind could be the lack of 

time and lack of general awareness 

among the parents. This 

really is an alarming situation 

requiring immediate intervention 

from both public and 

private institutes to enable safe 

Internet access to our young 

users. 

A couple of questions were 

exclusively asked from the 

kids to judge their Internet 

activities, frequency of their 

Internet activities and about 

their contact with inappropriate 

online content. The kids were 

mainly segregated as daily and 

weekly users. Results indicate 

that children between the age of 

8-18 years use Internet on daily 

or weekly basis, 88% use it to 

do school / college work, 82% 

for playing online games and 

78% use it to get information 

for other things. 

Almost six out of every ten, 

cumulatively (53%) have come 

in contact with pornography, 

34% have accidently found 

themselves on a pornographic 

website, 31% received pornographic 

junk mail by email or 

messenger and 30% have seen a 

pornographic pop-up advertisement 

while browsing Internet 

sites. 

In order to verify the interest of 

the parents to monitor online 

activities of their children and 

the assumptions in children’s 

mind, few questions were asked. 

Parents are generally unaware 

of their responsibility to manage 

their children’s internet use, only 

31% of them ask their children 

about their online activities, or 

monitor it themselves. Similarly 

responses of children also imply 

that their parents are not much 

bothered about their Internet 

usage. 

The last question of the survey 

inquired as what would be the 

priority action that they want to 

15Apr - 14May 2011 


13

minimize the online risks faced 

by children while using Internet. 

Majority of the parents were of 

the view that strong domestic 

rules should be implemented 

with necessary teaching guidelines 

available with schools / 

colleges and parents should also 

be engaged for necessary advice 

with respect to required measures 

and actions by parents. 

Conclusions & Way Forward 

1.Since much collaborative efforts 

have been done on the 

issue soo far. The developed 

world has raised this issue in a 

much precise way addressing 

almost all the concerns relating 

this issue; however there is 

still a segment of the issue that 

is left unnoticed. In a developing 

country like Pakistan an 

immature mind might land into 

a website which exhibits racism 

and religious discord. These sites 

inflict hatred and extremism 

which ultimately have daring 

consequences on not only that 

kid but he might end up in a 

suicide attack, thereby harming 

himself and hundreds of others. 

His young mind could easily 

be casted with information, 

which might not be accurate, 

chat rooms prove to be easy 

access for such activities. This is 

a very common practice which 

not only affecting the future 

of a particular child, but also 

costing his own life especially 

in a country like Pakistan. So 

international assistance, suggestions 

and guidance is solicited 

on the issue. 

2. Children access the Internet 

in diverse environments (School, 

Home, Other places). Pakistan 

being a developing country has 

one of the highest numbers of 

children living below the poverty 

line. In most of the cases where 

children have access to online 

content, the parents are naive 

enough to understand technology 

and information dissemination 

thorough that particular 

technology, since in majority 

cases it is the first generation 

that has access to education 

and access to any mode of 

communication technology, 

so they are not very bothered 

about what their kid is coming 

across when he is accessing any 

sorts of information through 

any gadget. The reason that’s 

accounts for such a behavior by 

parents is their ignorance to the 

use of technology. They might be 

educated through any forms of 

mass media. Ad’s and programs 

to educate parents through Tv 

could prove to be helpful in this 

case. Once the parents/ guardians 

are educated only then they 

can eye the activities of their 

kid. Also an adult supervisory 

role is very imperative as far as 

child online safety is concerned. 

This disparity has to be dealt 

in an appropriate manner to 

facilitate a safe and secure 

Internet utilization for our next 

generation. 

3. There is a requirement to 

teach Children in Schools about 

what are online threats that 

they may confront while using 

Internet. The survey results 

show that majority of the 

children are not aware if they 

have accidently landed into an 

undesired web content. Inclusion 

of certain short courses in 

their syllabus can be of help, 

also access to undesired content 

at educational institutes should 

be monitored by concerned. 

4. Improved International cooperation 

is needed to eradicate 

the growing problem of child-sex 

tourism. Internationally $4 

million software program called 

Child Exploitation Tracking 

System (CETS) was developed 

following an e-mail sent to Bill 

Gates in 2003. CETS program 

allows police forces to work 

together more effectively, 

searching for and exchanging 

encrypted information about 

offenders and victims. The main 

purpose of CETS is to connect 

the police forces. Parents in 

the Western world are recommended 

to inform the police if 

any objectionable material is 

found in their child’s PC which 

frightens them. There is also 

a global task force formed to 

track down pedophiles known 

as Virtual Task Force which can 

be contacted at www.virtualtaskforce.com. 

Sadly in Pakistan 

there is no such thing as police 

helping out parents in tracking 

down child sex abusers. 

5. International cooperation for 

development of unified indicators 

to measure the present 

level of online child protection 

status in an economy is 

imperative. This would indeed 

help in effectively improving the 

countermeasures required by a 

particular country. In Pakistan 

also, there should be more 

effective Internet laws and 

policy organizations, internet 

watchdogs, research institutes 

and think tanks, advocacy 

organizations, and professional 

associations where this issue 

could be tackled in true letter 

and spirit. 

6. Media should play a pivotal 

role in educating masses in 

publicizing the contribution of 

the Internet to the society as 

today’s major changes in developing 

countries like Pakistan. 

This includes talk shows, TV 

programs with known celebrities 

educating masses so that 

more viewership would be 

there, morning shows as people 

especially housewives are very 

fond of these shows. 

7. The policy makers and the 

government officials should 

take effective measures against 

the pedophiles by tracking them 

down and their associates and 

banning their sites. There is 

requirement of a National level 

strategy action plan brining on 

board all relevant stakeholders 

to address this growing challenge. 

8. Strengthen national collaboration 

and coordination, institute 

legal measures, consistently 

advocate and raise awareness, 

enforce and monitor. In this 

regard recommendations from 

major international forums such 

as the world congress on sexual 

exploitation of children and 

IGF should be promoted and 

highlighted for states to ensure 

their implementation. T 


15Apr - 14May 2011

Interview: Khalid Athar 

“We have a 

national strategy 

called Digital Oman 

and E-Oman” 

Talal Bin Sulaiman Al Rahbi 

is currently working as the 

Deputy CEO at Information 

Technology Authority (ITA) in 

the Sultanate of Oman. He is 

responsible for ITA Divisions 

that are implementing training 

programs and strategic 

awareness in support of the 

Digital Oman Strategy and 

eGovernment initiative, and 

directs programs and projects 

concerning development of the 

IT industry in the Sultanate. 

Also under Mr. Al Rahbi’s 

mandate is promoting the 

e.oman initiative locally and 

globally, supervising programs 

for international software 

licensing agreements. 

Among his responsibilities 

is managing research work 

related to surveys, statistics 

and indicators for ITA. Mr. 

Al Rahbi is also in charge of 

operations related to ITA 

contracts and investment. He 

is currently a member of the 

board for the UNESCO Institute 

for Statistics and is a member 

of the Technical Committee for 

Statistics in the Sultanate of 

Oman. 

Prior to joining ITA, Talal 

worked with Omantel as the 

head of project development 

and market intelligence so he 

was working in the telecom 

sector. He also worked in 

United States for one year. 

Before that, he was in a council 

in the government, working on 

economic research. 

Talal Al Rahbi attended 

university in the United States 

Talal Sulaiman Al Rahbi 

Dy CEO, IT Authority - Oman 

Speaks to 

Teletimes International 

of America. He has a Master 

Degree in Public Policy and 

Administration from the 

University of Oregon, and a 

Bachelors Degree in Economics 

from the University of 

Louisiana. 

Talal has an experience of 

over 10 years in leadership 

positions within different 

government and private 

sector organizations and 

a successful track record 

in setting up departments, 

recruiting talented teams, 


15Apr - 14May 2011

and establishing processes. 

He is a result oriented person 

with ability to lead teams to 

common objectives and high 

standards achievements. Talal 

has experience in leading 

technical projects that 

require different level 

of systems and 

integration with 

links to business 

processes. 

Mr. Talal Sulaiman 

Al Rahbi was 

kind enough to 

be interviewed 

by the Chief 

Editor, Teletimes 

International in Muscat. 

The interview is given 

below for the readers. 

Teletimes - Would you like to 

tell our readers about the basic 

operations and objectives of 

ITA Oman? 

Talal Al Rahbi - 

ITA(Information Technology 

Authority) Oman is a 

government independent body, 

it was created or established 

in 2006 as part of a national 

strategy regarding e-governance 

which was approved by 

the cabinet in 2002 to be 

implemented and part of this 

strategy was to build a digital 

society and there were a 

number of projects that were 

recommended as part of the 

strategy. ITA was established 

to undertake the infrastructure 

projects in addition to helping 

the government provide its 

services online and equipping 

the public and the government 

employees with the right skills 

to benefit from technology. 

TT - Would you like to share 

with us the outcome and 

detail of your projects like the 

digital literacy training and 

certification for civil service 

workforce etc. 

TAR - One of the main 

responsibilities of the ITA has 

been to equip and train the civil 

service employees, as well as 

citizens so that they can benefit 

from technology. We have two 

One of the 

main responsibilities of 

the ITA has been to equip 

and train the civil service 

employees, as well as citizens 

so that they can benefit 

from technology. 

main projects, one main project 

is about training around a 

hundred thousand employees 

with IT skills, we carry out 

replacement tests, and we just 

finished replacement tests for 

over 40000 employees. Over 

23000 civil service employees 

have finished the training. The 

project is still on-going and 

we aim to train over 100,000 

employees. 

On the other hand, we are 

establishing community 

knowledge centers (CKC). 

These centers are distributed 

throughout the country 

in the main cities of 

Oman. These centers 

provide free training 

of basic IT skills. 

Anybody from the 

community is 

eligible to take 

this training 

if he/ 

she is 

above 15 years old and is 

able to read and write, and 

these centers also serve as an 

access point to internet for 

the general public. Besides 

the training times, people can 

come and use these centers 

to access internet or use 

the government services 

online. 

TT - ITA recently 

signed a 

Memorandum of 

Understanding (MoU) 

with Qalhat LNG 

who will support 

the establishment of 

the first ever Women’s 

Community Knowledge Center 

(CKC) in Al Batinah region. Our 

readers would like a few details 

in this regard. 

TAR - Training the community 

and providing them with the 

right skills requires partnership 

with the private sector as 

well. We have a number of 

companies in Oman who have 

funds for social responsibility 

such as Qalhat. We are also 

trying to work with nonprofit 

organizations or nongovernment 

organizations such 

as the Women Association 

to establish more centers to 

train the community. One 

agreement is with the Women 

Association, and we 

also ask other 

companies like 

Qalhat as 

mentioned, 

and 

thankfully, 

they agree. 

We are 

hoping 

that other 

companies will 

also partner 

with us in 

supporting this 

project. 

TT - As the 

Information 

15Apr - 14May 2011 


17

Technology Authority, what 

major aims do you have in 

mind for the near future? And 

what is your strategy towards 

working on these aims? 

TAR - As I said before, we 

have a national strategy called 

Digital Oman and E-governance 

strategy, and now we call it in 

short E-Oman. This strategy 

was developed in 2002, 

however, we got approval from 

our board of directors early this 

year, approving the five year 

plan. Government of Oman, 

usually carries out its 

projects according to 

five year plans. 

This project has 

a time frame 

of 2011- 

2015. Each 

government 

works on 

projects 

according 

to its own 

time-frame. 

The government 

have a vision of 

Oman in 2020, with 

this vision, they have 

a number of five year 

plans taking place. ITA 

this year developed its own 

plan, to develop the 

IT sector in 

Oman. 

This 

plan has a number of initiatives 

regarding training the 

government employees and 

the public as well as working 

with the private sector to 

establish the ICT industry here 

in Oman. Besides that we 

are also working with 

different government 

organizations, such 

as the Ministry of 

Commerce or the 

Development Bank 

of Oman and many 

others. There is 

another project we are working 

on which is about continuing 

to develop the infrastructure 

in the country such as the 

There are a 

lot of efforts by 

Omantel and Nawras to 

expand their reach and 

provide Internet and 

Mobile Access in the 

rural areas. 

National Disaster Data Center. 

TT - How do you see the level 

of information technology 

in Oman? Would you like to 

compare it with other areas in 

the region? 

TAR - The closest areas to 

which we compare Oman are 

the other GCC countries. Oman 

is currently at a good level, the 

statistics show that recently 

the internet penetration rate in 

Oman is 69% which is a rapid 

increase from what it 

was a couple 

of years 

ago. 

The curve is going higher and 

higher. The level of information 

technology employed and 

being used has also increased 

significantly. People are 

keen, especially the young 

people. The majority of the 

population is under 25 

years of age, and all of 

these people are keen 

to use the internet 

and learn. Mobile 

Broadband is also 

being highly used in 

the country now. 

TT - Are there any 

problems being faced 

by ITA? How are you 

working towards overcoming 

it? 

TAR - There are a number of 

challenges in implementing 

any IT project. This is not 

unique only to Oman but 

this is the case for the whole 

world. One challenge we face 

is that when we try to increase 

the penetration rate in the 

country, we try to cover the 

whole country, and as Oman 

is the second largest country 

in the GCC, the population is 

scattered all over the country, 

although there is a number 

of efforts taking place, and 

we have managed to increase 

the penetration rate, but still 

we are working with other 

organizations and TRA to 

help implement our efforts 

throughout the country which 

is a difficult challenge. 

Another challenge we face is 

related to the regulation and 

the policies of the government. 

Every initiative and project 

regarding IT implementation 

may need some sort of rearrangement 

in this regard. 

Providing e-services requires in 

some aspect, re-engineering of 

the processes. This leads to the 

need of changing sometimes 

the policies and the regulations. 

Trying to move the government 

from its traditional ways to 


15Apr - 14May 2011

more tech-savvy methods 

and more use of information 

technology is difficult, it leads 

to many different challenges. 

One challenge we were facing 

and are now overcoming is the 

people’s mindset. The level of 

awareness amongst people has 

immensely increased over time 

now. 

All these challenges are being 

overcome with the efforts 

of the government, and the 

support from the private sector. 

I think we are seeing more and 

more e-services, the region has 

transformed and there is high 

development of IT services in 

the country. 

TT - What is the current 

position of the Information 

Technology level in the rural 

areas of the country? 

TAR - The government policy 

here in Oman is to provide all 

utility services to everybody 

in the country regardless of 

their location, electricity being 

extended, water-supply being 

extended. The same thing is 

with telecom, in Oman we have 

the objectives of providing 

telecom services to everybody. 

So, in areas where the provision 

of telecom and IT services by 

companies is not economically 

suitable, the government comes 

in and funds or subsidies such 

projects. There are a lot of 

efforts by Omantel and Nawras 

to expand their reach and 

provide Internet and Mobile 

Access in the rural areas. 

Oman has over 1000 schools 

scattered over the country, 

and ITA is working towards 

providing these schools satellite 

technology. 

TT - Please tell our readers 

about the E-governance project 

in detail? 

TAR - We have 

launched in 2008, 

what I call 

the Phase of 

E-governance, 

through 

www.oman. 

om, which 

is a national 

portal. This is a 

single entry to 

all government 

services and 

information. This 

portal also facilitates the 

flow of information between 

government-to-government 

and government-to-citizen. It is 

also accessible through mobile. 

We also have kiosks around the 

country, where users can use 

their id cards and fingerprints 

to access the portal. We also 

developed an e-payment 

gateway which is accessible 

through the portal. It’s also 

facilitating the commerce 

industry in Oman. We have 

also introduced a new project, 

which is called the e-purse. 

Through a smart-chip in the 

ID card, you can load that 

smart-chip with money and 

We carry out a 

lot of research in the IT 

area as well as attend all 

the important conferences and 

meetings around the world, 

organized by international 

organizations such as the 

United Nations. 

use the ID card as a method of 

payment. All the machines that 

accept credit cards, also accept 

ID cards. The same ID cards 

can also be used for voting 

during elections, and people 

vote through their smartchips. 

Besides that, these ID 

cards also help in maintaining 

records. So basically, the smartchips 

in the ID cards have 

become the center which has 

made things very easy for the 

Omani Citizens. 

TT - The number of internet 

users in Oman is still quite 

smaller than other countries 

in the Middle East like U.A.E, 

Kuwait and Lebanon. Why is 

it so? Please also comment on 

how these trends are changing. 

TAR - This was the case 

sometime ago. But now things 

are changing, the number of 

internet and broadband users 

has rapidly increased. If you 

look at the curve, it went up 

very sharply. Last year, we 

recorded a 53% penetration 

rate, while the latest record 

shows that we have gone up 

to a 69% penetration 

rate. The coverage in 

the percentage is 

increasing rapidly. 

TT - In the 

modern era where 

information and 

technology are 

two of the most 

valuable assets, 

what is ITA doing 

to keep Oman up 

with the evolving 

technologies all around 

the world? 

TAR - There are a lot of things. 

We carry out a lot of research 

in the IT area as well as attend 

all the important conferences 

and meetings around the world, 

organized by international 

organizations such as the 

United Nations. We keep 

up to date through research. 

We subscribe to a number 

of research material. We 

know what the international 

trends and changes are. We 

try to stay ahead of the 

curves, anticipating the future 

technologies and choosing the 

right areas for the government 

to invest in. As technology is 

an ever-changing area, a lot 

of thinking analysis, study 

and research is carried out. 

We try to increase the local 

awareness, the skills and 

capability of the Omani people. 

We encourage innovation and 

creativity, and give out awards 

for encouragement. We are 

continuously supporting people 

and organizations that are 

developing or helping develop 

new technologies that can help 

us to take Oman forward. T 

15Apr - 14May 2011 


19


15Apr - 14May 2011

Oman’s biggest IT, Telecom 

& Technology show around the corner 

MUSCAT— Covering an 

area of over 12,000 

square meters of exhibition 

space, COMEX 2011, the most 

awaited dynamic and comprehensive 

IT, telecom and technology 

show promises to deliver 

the ultimate platform for business 

professionals to meet and 

connect and for consumers to 

shop. With its theme as “Shift 

to e” and under the patronage 

of e.oman, COMEX 2011 is all 

set to take place at the Oman 

International Exhibition Centre 

from 25 – 29 April 2011. A 

bigger show is expected this 

year to break another record 

of receiving more than 75,000 

visitors, on the lookout for the 

best deals on offer. 

For twenty years, COMEX has 

grown to provide both consumers 

and business professionals 

with a gateway to the world’s 

most empowering digital solutions. 

The history of COMEX 

has been recording key milestones 

in the ICT sector. Last 

year, COMEX proved to be a 

big hit with over 120 companies 

participating and more than 

70,000 visitors flocking in from 

Singapore, UAE, Egypt, Saudi 

Arabia, India, Jordan and Qatar. 

COMEX has received great 

response from the industry with 

CISCO & Microsoft as ICT Lead 

Sponsors; Omantel, Telecommunications 

Regulatory Authority, 

Technology Resources Network, 

Toshiba Gulf and Hungarian IT 

Companies as Lead Sponsors; 

Ericsson Oman, United Systems, 

Huawei Tech Investment 

(Oman) LLC and Jawad Sultan 

Technologies LLC as Platinum 

Sponsors; Nawras as a Full 

Service Provider; Mansoft Qatar 

and Smart Vision Technical 

Servies LLC as Gold Sponsors. 

Business section 

COMEX attempts to deliver the 

ultimate platform for business 

professionals to meet and 

connect through the COMEX 

Business section. COMEX Business 

will feature the latest IT 

solutions in action as well as 

offer a wide range of opportunities 

for visitors and delegates 

to explore innovative solutions 

and possibilities to boost their 

business. 

Serving as an ideal platform 

for investors, manufacturers, 

vendors, system integrators 

and solution providers, COMEX 

Business will provide an outlook 

on the regional ICT industry, 

allowing participants and 

visitors alike the opportunity to 

leverage partnerships, discover 

the latest developments and 

encourage joint business ventures 

and cooperation in Oman 

and the region. COMEX will 

be enriched with events and 

special projects of business and 

government organisations, aiming 

to create the most comprehensive 

information platform 

for the business sector. For the 

government sector, the focus 

will be on the ICT initiatives 

taken to enable efficient and 

effective delivery of products 

and services to customers and 

citizens by digitalizing their life 

through information technology. 

Shopper section 

Enthusiasts after the latest 

trends in technology, hardware, 

software, gadgets and consumer 

electronics will be able 

to explore new technological 

horizons at COMEX Shopper 

and bring home the experience. 

Every year, COMEX Shopper 

gathers providers of the world’s 

biggest brands and offers an 

excellent opportunity to take 

home the latest innovations at 

exceptional prices. 

This year, COMEX Shopper 

will feature a line-up of the 

latest technology gadgets from 

audio and media players, digital 

photography, e.books, gaming 

and peripherals, home entertainment, 

home networking, IT 

components and peripherals, 

mobile phones, PCs, notebooks 

and tablets, SatNav, TV and 

display technology, and much 

more. 

Newly added features in this 

year’s COMEX Show incorporate 

a new and enhanced media 

centre with many activities 

providing information on new 

technology and entertainment 

for all visitors. As well, there is 

a series of workshops planned 

to run parallel to the exhibition. 

e.oman vision 

Ehab Al Hindawi 

COMEX embodies the inspirational 

vision of e.oman to transform 

the Sultanate of Oman 

into a sustainable knowledge 

society by leveraging Information 

and Communication Technologies 

to enhance government 

services, enrich businesses 

and empower individuals. 

Looking to the future, COMEX 

will continue to evolve and 

innovate, keeping pace with 

the ever-changing digital world 

whilst broadening its international 

horizons to integrate 

other dynamic markets. 

COMEX Conference 

The 2nd COMEX 2011 Conference 

will be organised to 

provide participating delegates 

with an opportunity to learn 

and explore how the latest 

ICT trends and strategies can 

impact their existing and new 

business models and help 

their organisations to improve 

efficiency and achieve the 

bottom line. To be held on the 

26th and 27th of April respectively, 

at the Golden Tulip Hotel 

Seeb, the conference will bring 

delegates up close and personal 

with people and products 

that will shape the future of 

information and communication 

technology. 

The theme of this year’s 

conference is ‘Mobility as a 

driving force towards business 

transformation’. The conference 

will highlight various topics 

related to mobility including the 

latest mobile/wireless technologies 

and trends, and discuss 

how they will impact Oman 

businesses. The conference will 

also focus on ‘Technologies & 

Strategies for SMEs’ and will 

include a focus session for small 

and medium enterprises aiming 

at providing the latest technological 

solutions, practical 

advice and strategies that will 

bring more benefit and value 

to SMEs. This year’s attendees 

at the conference, from both 

public and private sectors, are 

expected to touch more than 

250 visitors. 

An unparalleled opportunity 

to showcase the latest technologies 

all under one roof, 

renowned international companies 

including CISCO Systems 

International and ORACLE have 

confirmed their participation 

for the first time at the COMEX 

Conference as Main Sponsors, 

joined by Microsoft also a Main 

Sponsor and participating at 

COMEX for the second year. T 

15Apr - 14May 2011 


21

Bringing cloud computing 

back to earth 

Werner Knoblich, general manager EMEA for open source vendor Red 

Hat considers the implications and opportunities for the channel as 

cloud computing shakes up traditional computing business models. 

Recent research from Gartner 

suggests that by the 

end of 2012, 20% of organisations 

will have no IT assets. 

What are the implications of 

this on the wider IT ecosystem 

of ISVs, SIs and OEMs? Their 

traditional business model is 

being challenged as technology 

infrastructure moves out 

of the data centre and into 

the cloud. What strategic 

decisions can vendors make 

to capitalise on the cloud 

trend? Who should be part 

of their new alliance strategy? 

With every major technology 

player claiming to have a 

cloud strategy or offering, how 

can management teams cut 

through the noise to decipher 

the cloud conundrum? 

Cloud: the basics 

The National Institute of Science 

and Technology (NIST) 

defines the cloud thus: Cloud 

computing is a model for 

enabling convenient, ondemand 

network access to a 

shared pool of configurable 

computing resources (eg. 

networks, servers, storage, applications, 

and services) that 

can be rapidly provisioned 

and released with minimal 

management effort or service 

provider interaction. In a 

remarkably short time, cloud 

computing has emerged as a 

hugely important evolution in 

the way that businesses and 

individuals consume and operate 

computing. It’s a fundamental 

shift to an operational 

model in which applications 

don’t live out their lives on 

a specific piece of hardware 

and in which resources are 

more flexibly deployed than 

was the historical norm. It’s 

also a fundamental shift to a 

development and consumption 

model that replaces hardwired, 

proprietary connections 

among software components, 

and the consumers of those 

components, with lightweight 

web services and web-based 

software access. For the 

channel community, using an 

open source methodology can 

accelerate cloud adoption by 

validating key cloud specifications 

and sharing information 

to build confidence in 

cloud computing technology 

as formalised standards are 

made available. Whilst there 

is no question that the role of 

the traditional channel will be 

significantly impacted by the 

rapidly evolving on-demand 

services market, there is still 

plenty of room for innovative 

channel organisations to operate. 

There are also plenty of 

opportunities for new channel 

partners to succeed. 

The burgeoning cloud ecosystem 

Traditional value-added 

resellers (VARs) and systems 

integrators (SIs) that major 

on legacy, onsite, and server 

deployed technology are obviously 

at risk from the flexibility, 

cost effectiveness and 

simplicity of cloud services. 

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) 

and cloud computing reduce 

the marginal costs which 

historically represented the 

primary profits of traditional 

VARs and SIs. With foresight, 

there are still strategic 

decisions which VARs and SIs 

can make to overcome these 

challenges and capitalise on 

this revolution in technology 

procurement and consumption. 

Organisations still have 

a need to asses and select 

from the myriad of SaaS, PaaS 

(Platform) and IaaS (Infrastructure) 

vendors. There is 

also a need to integrate existing 

technology and processes, 

as well as optimising performance 

of their incumbent 

technology and new systems, 

and training end users.SIs 

can adapt their businesses to 

meet this need. By up-skilling 

to close the gap between the 

wide variety of cloud offerings 

and the needs of specific 

customers, SIs re-engineer to 

add value in the cloud channel 

ecosystem. SIs themselves can 

also benefit from the cloud 

as a testing ground for future 

implementations and as a 

repository for information. Extending 

this concept further, 

third parties can build their 

own technology on PaaS offerings, 

accessing fully developed 

and advanced platforms for 

the creation of customer or 

industry specific offerings. 

Finally, for a reseller, the cloud 

ecosystem simply offers a new 

market, and pent up demand, 

on which they can capitalise. 

As cloud offering move into 

majority, vendors recognise 

the need to build a solid 

reseller channel to survive. 

The investment needed to 

maintain momentum through 

a direct sales and support 

function can be offloaded to 

the reseller, regaining focus on 

the technology asset. For the 

reseller this provides a perfect 

opportunity to partner with 

cloud providers that pass on 

added value to their end customers. 

In contrast to legacy 

technology, resellers can move 

into the cloud market without 

having to learn the intricacies 

of development or maintenance. 

ISVs & developers 

For ISVs and developers looking 

to move technology into 

the cloud, a major consideration 

is the ability to develop 

applications that can be 

scaled and developed within 

the context of a cloud infrastructure. 

Route to market 

and quality of deployment are 

all at the heart of successful 

development, therefore any 

cloud partner must provide 

the tools and infrastructure 

to on-ramp quickly within a 

framework that ensures that 

software can be developed 

once and then rolled out 

across environments from the 

data centre to the cloud. Finally, 

any technology partner 

should eliminate barriers to 

cloud development, providing 

the tools to develop on any 

platform. T 


15Apr - 14May 2011

Tom‘s Corner 

Cross Connect 

recent new development 

A with the announcement of 

AT&T’s planned acquisition of 

T-Mobile, a strategic asset of 

Deutsche Telekom, which has 

already received approval byboth 

of their respective boards. While 

the news is exciting for many, 

it still has huge hurdles to climb 

with regard to gaining clearance 

from the US Department of 

Justice (ensuring no violation of 

US antitrust laws and others) 

as well as from the FCC. A 

clever bid for about 33 million 

subscribers, as per latest news 

release, would increase the 

total subscriber size to around 

120 million subscribers for the 

new AT&T. This would put the 

US carrier first in its domestic 

market place in number of 

subscribers, while Verizon would 

fall to second, having been in 

the first position for some time, 

since the latest acquisition of 

its own. This acquisition would 

leave predominantly three large 

nationalmobile carriers operating 

in the 300 million plus size US 

market. 

Already, this acquisition, or the 

very thought of it occurring has 

the third operator CEOmaking 

public remarks with regard how 

it may effect the marketplace. 

Headlines are screaming 

already in certain circles how a 

monopoly now soon will be a 

part of a duopoly, with it vying 

clearly with Verizon Wireless 

at the top of the market, with 

Sprint a very distant third 

market player. The regulators 

as stated elsewhere in this 

document are going to really be 

looking carefully at thisnotion 

of a merger, most likely on the 

city layer also, where potential 

conflict of spectrum ownership 

as well as possible market 

monopolization. There are 

obviously pros and cons to ever 

consolidation activity. They 

remain to be seen at this stage, 

for its entirely way too early. 

The eagles are flying however, 

to pick this apart BTS by BTS it 

may seem sometime in the not 

so far future. 

What this brings may be quite 

interesting, depending upon 

how things work out. What 

is intriguing is the merged 

carrier 3G networks are not 

currently capable of using similar 

handsets. At least not yet, due 

to the different frequencies 

which each carrier currently 

operate their own so-called 3G 

networks. AT&T has a plan to 

construct a much faster mobile 

broadband network than it 

currently does, which is using 

an extended version of HSDPA. 

The latest numbers on the new 

CAPEX investment is around 

eight billion US dollars and is 

predominantly going to be spent 

on covering rural areas, as well 

as roaming capabilities. There 

is hope that the business and 

governmental environment may 

support such investment for it 

must return positive equity to 

its investors or why would they 

invest in the upgrade? AT&T 

will gain access to additional 

spectrum, customers (who they 

can upsell smart phones and 

Apples), denser cell coverage in 

some areas (non 3G) and the 

fact that both carriers operate 

GSM brings many facets into 

scope. Additionally, be default, 

small as it may be in size now, 

but Audi just announced today 

that they selected T-Mobile US 

to be their wireless carrier of 

choice for their new A7 program. 

AT&T may win that 

business if it completes 

the acquisition. What 

is interesting further, 

is that the automobile 

manufacturers are 

getting wise and bringing 

mobile wireless to the 

vehicle,where a version 

of broadband and maybe 

even m2m, both will be in 

many manufacturers over time. 

Another way the operators can 

develop revenue that is nonvoice 

oriented. The metrics are 

intriguing. 

This act of consolidation may 

have considerable lessons 

for which others can watch 

and learn from. Is there true 

synergistic value in the pairing 

of the second and fourth 

largest operators in the US. Is 

spectrum the core component 

of the merger? Will the 

networks merge their pricing 

plans without harming existing 

post paid customers? Will the 

networks actually be able to 

share and bring aboard new 

higher revenue smart phones, 

which currently can’t operate 

on both networks as of yet? 

Will the access to both fixed 

and mobile broadband at higher 

speeds increase? T-mobile 

subscribers do potentially and 

possibly gain the iPhone but this 

is chiefly by having to switch 

to a probably proposed new 

rate plan from the old AT&T 

for them to move to the Apple 

program. Bandwidth caps and 

throttle down bandwidth is 

currently already in practice 

by each carrier respectively, 

however some sort of continuity 

of pricing, marketing, handsets, 

development on the 4G future 

networks and other very 

Tom Wilson 

CEO & Executive Managing Director 

SAMENA 

important activities will be quite 

complex. 

Carriers such as Etisalat Group, 

STC Group, Orange, Batelco 

Group, Orascom, MTN Group 

and others in the SAMENA 

region who already or will have 

similar statistics in subscribers 

are all facing some of the same 

issues. Where does conformity 

to standards across borders 

come to play and how far will 

consolidation go. The issues 

are actually quite different for 

the SAMENA region carriers 

as opposed to those in North 

America or in other large 

population developed markets, 

where there may be one single 

policy maker / regulator across 

the board for the entire one 

hundred twenty million plus 

subscribers. There is the good 

side, where mobile operators 

such as Verizon and AT&T can 

concentrate on one body such 

as the FCC, which is responsible 

for regulations and policy 

(sometimes stretching their 

understanding of what policy 

making and policy enforcement 

actually mean and for what they 

are authorized to enforce and 

etc.). However with one entity 

for the most part such as the 

FCC making creating regulatory 

framework and policies (within 

certain restrictions) such as net 

neutrality recently, having only 

one policy maker / regulator 

15Apr - 14May 2011 


23

Oman awards third licence 

to Sama Telecom 

SamaTel granted full licence as Sultan Qaboos promises more jobs 

Sama Telecommunications, 

an MVNO in Oman, has 

been awarded a full telecom 

licence for the country. 

Oman’s ruler, Sultan Qaboos 

bin Said, awarded the licence 

to Sama Telecom via a decree. 

The decree stated that Sama 

Telecom had been issued with 

a 15-year “first-grade licence” 

to offer “general international 

telecommunication services”. 

According to Oman’s TRA, a 

(Cross Connect) 

sort of forms an “all your eggs 

in one basket” sort of situation, 

or as they say, an all or nothing 

proposition and this for a 

population base of about 300 

million people. 

Unlike the situation in the US 

or even to a certain extent 

in the EU, operators in the 

SAMENA, African and Asian 

regions, who own and operate 

multiple operators across 

multiple borders, must deal 

with the interests of multiple 

facets, including in mostcases, 

both the legislative (Ministerial) 

institutions and the sometimes 

totally independent and 

sometimes not so independent 

regulatory bodies. Thetask 

itself is quite vexing for the 

operators to manage, let alone 

with different policy makers 

and regulators in each country 

market where an operation is 

located. This causes an extended 

need for the operators across 

the region, for an understanding 

with a certain dose of continuity 

and yet flexibility for each 

market’s special conditions. 

SAMENA and its member 

operators are working hard 

to work with each market’s 

stakeholders to bring the very 

first-grade licence 

gives the holder the 

right to establish a 

telecom network and 

international telecom 

infrastructure 

including gateways. 

The development will 

make Sama Telecom 

the country’s third 

full-fledged operator 

after incumbent 

Omantel, and Oman’s 

second telco, Nawras, 

best out of each situation for 

all stakeholders. This includes 

the socio – economic dividends 

from the investments that the 

industry makes on a continual 

basis, where the consumers, 

policy makers, regulators and 

service providers all work to 

affect positive development and 

growth in the market specifically 

tailored to the needs and 

requirements of each specific 

region. 

This environment calls for the 

operators to constantly review 

where to consolidate internally 

and how to capture greater 

value for its invested assets 

(monetary, human resources, 

infrastructure(s), customers 

and much more) across the 

spectrum of countries where 

the operators lie, along while 

having to manage dealing with 

a constant new flow of policies 

and potential regulation with 

regard to convergence, net 

neutrality, content stress on the 

network, unbundling, shared 

infrastructure and many other 

important issues. This is in 

addition to handling the stress 

on investment return and the 

need for the development of 

multiple positive investment 

H.M Sultan Qaboos bin Said 

friendly infrastructure policy 

environments. All stakeholders 

have a very important role in the 

market place, where dialogue, 

creative new business models 

and ideas, along with and 

positive interplay between all 

vested partners is absolutely a 

must. 

These times are different. The 

market has changed. The actual 

platform of choice has changed, 

where the internet is the new 

method of communication, 

where traditional voice 

percentage of total message 

traffic is declining in ratio to 

data message traffic, where 

smart phones that have the 

best social network interfaces 

tend to outsell all others as far 

as growth in the market, where 

fiber and high speed wireless 

transmission help in assisting 

in determining the revenues 

of an operator rather than the 

number of switch ports, where e 

and m mean the connotation of 

electronic (digital) and mobile 

to (E)health, (M)payments, (E) 

inclusion and many other means 

of value add proposition rather 

than the old legacy meaning of 

ear and mouth (E&M). 

which launched 

services in 2006. 

The decree coincided 

with a promise by 

Sultan Qaboos bin 

Said to create more 

jobs in response to 

growing protests 

in the country. 

Protests in Oman 

with hundreds of 

people gathering in 

the industrial city of 

Sohar. T 

Becoming the partner of choice 

is absolutely the evident focus 

of the operators going forward 

in a digital content crazy 

environment. It is imperative 

those opportunities such as 

those that AT&T and thus, the 

potential acquisitions of the 

future, including maybe Zain 

by Etisalat, Natrindo Telepon 

Seluler (NTS) Axis by STC 

and others willbring a strong 

opportunity for harmonized 

policy, with all the variables 

that are involved working 

toward progress, rather than in 

a destructive mode. At the end 

of the day, all the stakeholders 

must work proactively together 

to manage the potential 

vortex should they choose not 

to synthesize a productive 

environment. Efficiency is highly 

important when the investment 

can be in the billions. 

These are different times, 

yet we are certain the future 

will ring loud and clear with 

vibrancy not yet experienced 

in earlier times. The adopted 

saying of “change is opportunity 

and the ICT industry is always 

changing” may apply here most 

assuredly. T 


15Apr - 14May 2011

Report - Mohammad Hijab 


debates growth strategies and future internet challenges 

Delegates from across the region discuss wide-ranging broadband 

issues, challenges and solutions in Muscat 

Telecommunications 

professionals from the 

across the Middle East and 

North Africa met in Muscat 

on 7th March to discuss the 

future of Broadband technology 

at a Summit organized by the 

SAMENA Telecommunications 

Council under the patronage of 

Dr. Mohammad Wahaibi, Under 

Secretary for Communications 

at the Ministry of Transport 

and Communications. 

The keynote speeches and 

debates covered a broad 

spectrum of issues including 

the challenge for broadband 

technology from Next 

Generation Access, general 

growth and strategy issues for 

the sector in both the fixed and 

mobile area, the importance of 

building effective Public Private 

Partnerships for broadband 

growth and infrastructure 

and how to stimulate greater 

demand in the SAMENA 

region. 

Highlighting the importance 

of creating public private 

partnership to build next 

generation national broadband 

networks as a prerequisite 

for economic and social 

development, H.E. Dr. 

Mohammed Ali Al Wahaibi 

in his opening speech said, 

“In many countries building 

a next generation national 

broadband network constitutes 

the single largest infrastructure 

investment.” 

Commenting on the Summit, 

Thomas Wilson, CEO of 

SAMENA Telecommunications 

Council said, “We are 

delighted to be hosting such 

a major event in Oman which 

is increasingly becoming a 

major regional hub for the 

telecommunications industry 

thanks to its excellent 

geographic position and the 

leadership role played by 

Omantel in introducing modern 

and highly sophisticated 

telecommunications technology 

to the nation.” 

“Broadband – both fixed and 

mobile – is one of the fastest 

growing technologies and we 

have seen extremely rapid 

growth across the SAMENA 

region in recent years. This 

Summit is aptly timed to 

discuss and debate key issues 

that affect its development, 

and share knowledge and best 

practices to ensure continued 

growth and expansion of 

broadband technology to 

individuals and the corporate 

and Government sectors”, 

added Wilson. 

The one day Summit held at 

the Barr Al Jissah Shangri- 


15Apr - 14May 2011

La Resort and Spa attracted 

professionals from the private 

and public telecommunications 

sector from across South Asia, 

the Middle East and North 

Africa. It provided an excellent 

opportunity for companies 

to exchange information and 

experiences in the area of 

broadband technology which 

is becoming increasingly 

important to both individuals 

and the business sector in 

region. 

The speakers included 

Gary O’Neal - Chief Technology 

Advisor, Bocar A BA – 

President SAMENA, Dr. Amer 

Al-Rawas – Chief Executive 

Officer Omantel, Stewart White 

– MESA Head of Telecoms 

KPMG (UAE), Hadi Raad – 

Principal Booz & Co. (KSA), 

Hugh Collins – Director Inter 

connect Communications (UK), 

Thorleif Herrstrom – Prinicpal 

Advisor Herrstrom, Romain 

Delavenne – Director Telecom 

Media & Entertainment 

Capgemini Consulting (UAE), 

Ziad Matar – Business 

Development Director ME – 

Qualcomm (UAE), Jon Collins – 

Vice Presidnet Telcordia (UAE), 

Ms. Saleha Asif – Associate 

Principal Mckinsey & Company 

(UAE), Ross Cormack – Chief 

Executive Officer Nawras 

(Oman), Noel Kirkaldy – 

Director of Solutions Motorola 

(UAE), Florian Michel Gabriel 

– ME Network Lead Accenture 

(UAE), Hadi Raad – Pricipal 

Booz & Co. (KSA), Tom Koster 

– Vice President Speed Cast 

(UAE), Anil Pande – Director 

Telecom Marketing FTTH 

Council Europe (India), Lars O 

Gustafsson – Vice President 

Business Development Omantel 

(Oman), Emmanuel Durou – 

Senior Engagement Manager 

value Partner (UAE), Dr. Karim 

Taga – Managing Director 

Arthur Dlittle (Austria) and 

Jeremy Foster – Head of 

Marketing and Government 

/ Industry Relation Ericsson 

(UAE). 

15Apr - 14May 2011 


27


key note address 

Dr. Mohammad Ali Al-Wahaibi, Unders secretary for 

Communications, Government of Oman 

would like to welcome all 

I the participants and guests 

to Muscat for the SAMENA 

Broadband Summit 2011. We 

are very privileged to host 

this important Summit that 

gathers Industry Experts on 

Broadband. 

As you are aware, Broadband 

networks are increasingly 

recognized as fundamental 

prerequisite for economic 

and social development. They 

serve as a communication 

and transaction platform for 

the entire economy and can 

improve productivity across all 

sectors. 

it is, therefore, a key driver 

of economic growth and 

national competitiveness, and 

it can contribute to social and 

cultural development. 

For many countries building 

Next Generation Broadband 

Networks constitute the 

single largest Infrastructure 

investment. Countries that 

don’t join the race risk the 

chance of being left behind 

in future economic and social 

prosperity. 

However, due to the size 

and scale of the Investment 

of building next-generation 

broadband networks, telecom 

companies face a dilemma; 

first the level of uncertainty 

that relates to direct profitable 

return is not straightforward, 

second the new network 

remains a field of competition, 

third the regulation is not 

clear, and fourth the demand is 

uncertain. 

Thus, due to the national 

economic benefits of NBN, 

government intervention is 

required to expedite its rollout. 

However, before a 

government embarks 

in Building the 

Next- Generation 

Broadband Network 

it should balance 

between many 

conflicting 

requirements. 

The First issue 

is the type of 

Government 

Intervention: 

Should the 

government 

play the role of 

an Observer, a 

Facilitator, or a Driver? 

However, before a 

government decides on the 

type of intervention it should 

review the country specific 

characteristics such as market 

structure, economic indicators, 

and geographic spread of the 

population. 

The Second issue relates to 

Demand: 

Is there an actual demand for 

Next generation Broadband? Is 

this demand certain? 

Can we build the NBN and 

assume that customers will 

queue for it? A sort of “build it 

and they will come!” 

What levers that government 

can apply to stimulate Demand 

for NBN? 

The third issue relates to 

Regulation: 

What is the best Regulatory 

Regime for NBN? What 

costing methodologies should 

be adopted? What about 

frequency allocation? 

Are 

the old 

regulatory 

tools such as local loop and 

interconnect regimes STILL 

suitable for the NBN. 

Should a Regulator protect the 

investment of operators on 

the first-generation BB? And 

how would the Regulator chart 

a successful transition to the 

NBN regime. 

The Fourth Issue is 

Competition: 

Can the existing level of 

competition be achieved? Or 

would the new NBN reduce 

competition? 

Would the new competition be 

in services and applications? 

If the new competition is in 

Services, would the new regime 

dis-incentives operators from 

Investing in Infrastructure? Do 

operators need to review their 

layers of traditional service 

delivery? 

The fifth issue relates to 

Technology: 

Does the new NBN have to 

be based on fiber only? 

Can mobile play a role as 

well? What technology 

should be used at the 

access level to foster 

innovation? 

And finally what is the 

social impact of the 

NBN? Would the new 

NBN Bridge the digital 

divide between rural 

areas and the cities? 

What government policy 

is needed to stimulate 

delivery of intended benefits 

to the underserved? 

Your excellencies, ladies and 

gentlemen,,,, 

I have provided more questions 

than answers for the purpose 

of stimulating debate on the 

issues surrounding NBN rollout 

on this Summit. Furthermore 

I strongly believe that there is 

no perfect answer or a perfect 

recipe for rollout of NBN that 

a country can copy and apply 

successfully. The debate around 

NBN rollout is ongoing around 

the world, and while there 

are many success stories from 

government5 around the world, 

a country should find its own 

formula based on its market 

structure, social settings, 

economic indicators, and the 

intensity and the geographic 

spread of its population. 

Keeping that in mind, I am 

pleased to announce that 

Oman has embarked on its 

own discovery exercise for the 

objective of finding the best 

formula of leapfrogging in 

the race of Next-Generation 

National Broadband Network. T 


15Apr - 14May 2011

Measured approach 

On the surface, STC Group’s 

most recent set of financial 

results appeared to typify the 

fortunes of most incumbent 

telecom operators that have seen 

their home markets eroded by 

tough competition. 

In its Q4 2010 results, STC 

posted a 23% decline in net 

profit to SR2.29 billion ($610.7 

million). STC’s operating profit 

rose 15% to SAR3.03 billion, but 

its full-year net income declined 

by 13% to SAR9.4 billion. 

However, the results were 

generally in line with analyst 

expectations, and as STC said in 

its results statement, the sudden 

fall was also related to a one-off 

gain in Q4 2009, which resulted 

from the listing of STC’s Malaysian 

joint venture, Maxis Group. 

STC also said that its 2010 profit 

fell due to an increase in costs 

related to capital investments in 

Saudi Arabia and abroad. 

STC’s explanation of the results 

appears to hold some weight. 

The operator has certainly faced 

some significant costs after 

launching mobile operations 

from scratch in Kuwait at the 

end of 2008, and in Bahrain in 

March 2010. 

“The dip in the home market was 

a top-line dip,” says Ghassan 

Hasbani, CEO, international, STC. 

“If you look at the bottom-line 

issue, there is not a dip.” 

“The cost efficiency programmes 

that have been run at STC have 

actually brought a positive 

impact on the financials so it 

has been a positive story, not a 

negative story. 

“The question is one of net 

income. If you look at the size of 

STC and the dividend and payout 

ratio and you look at the scale 

of infrastructure it has globally, 

we are more skewed towards 

Ghassan Hasbani 

CEO STC International 

investments in long-term growth 

markets, so this is where the 

money is still going.” 

Hasbani insists that the positive 

impact of international operations 

on profitability will take 

some time, possibly two to 

three years. However, STC’s 

international forays in the past 

few years, which have seen the 

telco gain a presence in India, 

Indonesia, Malaysia, Turkey and 

South Africa, as well as Kuwait 

and Bahrain, are already having 

a positive effect on revenues. 

“The positive income in terms 

of total revenue growth is there 

already. It is already pushing 

revenues significantly,” he says. 

“Most of the investments have 

already gone into the ground, so 

it now is a time of incremental 

capacity and sweating the assets,” 

he adds. 

Bahrain and Kuwait 

And two of the main assets that 

STC is busy nurturing are its 

mobile operations in Kuwait and 

Bahrain. STC acquired Bahrain’s 

third mobile licence back in 

March 2009, for about $240 

million, and launched operations 

last March. Hasbani says the 

operation has “proven a good 

success” in its first year of operations. 

Hasbani describes the situation 

in the highly penetrated 

Bahraini market, where Viva 

competes with Batelco and Zain, 

as being a “value war”. 

Despite a mobile penetration 

rate of well-above 100% and a 

population of little more than 1 

million people, Hasbani insists 

that Viva has significant growth 

potential. 

“If you look at our pricing 

structure, it is not extremely low, 

but it is at the right level with 

the benefits that you get out of 

it, because we don’t have any 

legacy systems on the network. 

We were able to create a lot of 

value and we are still creating a 

lot of innovative products and 

services and packages that offer 

a lot of value for the money that 

you pay for them,” he says. 

At the beginning of February, 

Viva Bahrain secured funds for 

infrastructure expansion and 

general costs after it signed a 

$280 million financing agreement 

with HSBC Bahrain and 

Samba, a Saudi Arabian bank. 

Hasbani says the agreement 

represented a “very good deal” 

and that by arranging most of 

the agreement in dollars, Viva 

Bahrain was able to secure a low 

interest rate. 

“We are deploying infrastructure 

anyway, and Viva is still in 

growth mode so it is effectively 

being used to fund the entire 

operation. “This is a long term 

funding so it will help the company 

until the cash situation is 

sustainable and self sufficient, 

so we don’t envisage any further 

major funding rounds beyond 

this,” he adds. Meanwhile, Viva 

Kuwait also remains in “growth 

mode” and is expected to become 

profitable in 2010, according 

to Hasbani. 

“We already have a good traction 

on subscriber and revenue 

growth. Kuwait and Bahrain 

are similar stories, with steady 

Roger Field 

STC Group started its international expansion later than some of its regional peers, 

but the Saudi incumbent is poised to reap the rewards of its recent investments 

growth and a good cost management 

approach, because they 

are both lean, small operations,” 

he says. Across its operations, 

Hasbani says that “promised new 

revenue streams” are also starting 

to emerge from “phenomenal” 

broadband growth. 

“We have been investing in 

broadband, DSL and fibre and 

now we are starting to reap the 

benefits where we are experiencing 

actual growth on revenues 

in this sector. That is significant 

and is starting to compensate for 

certain diminishing revenues on 

traditional services,” he says. 

Market dynamics 

In terms of further opportunities 

in the Middle East, Hasbani 

points to Syria, where STC is one 

of five companies bidding for the 

country’s third mobile licence, 

which is understood to have a 

reserve price of EUR90 million 

($122.7m). 

Speaking generally about opportunities 

in the region’s telecom 

sector, Hasbani says further 

acquisition targets are likely to 

present themselves in 2011, as 

some larger private investors 

seek to cash in on the rising 

value of telecom assets. 

“As long as they [PIs] are at the 

end of the cycle and they see 

this [telecoms] as the only sector 

they can exit at a good price, 

then we will see more of them 

exiting to cover other sectors 

that they have invested in,” he 

says. 

“I see that happening in the next 

couple of years, with large PI 

owners of telecom assets. There 

is also more appetite to come 

into the sector and invest in telecoms, 

and we are seeing large PI 

groups eyeing up telecoms again 

because it is the only thing they 

can sell to others. T 

15Apr - 14May 2011 


31

Interview: Gulraiz Khalid 

“We invest heavily 

in the development of core mobile technology...” 

Raheel Kamal is 

Head of Central 

Asia, Global 

Business Operations, 

QUALCOMM 

Incorporated, 

headquartered in California, 

USA. 

He has been involved in the 

development and deployment 

of CDMA and UMTS networks 

from the very onset. He has 

led many international mobile 

communications projects 

encompassing both cellular 

and satellite systems and has 

assisted major global mobile 

operators in their technology 

trials, network deployments, 

system optimizations, and 

technical trainings. 

Raheel Kamal 

Head of Business Operations 

for Central Asia 

Qualcomm 

In 

his 

Business 

Development role, he works 

with a wide cross section of 

entities including policy making 

bodies, regulatory authorities, 

frequency planning boards, 

infrastructure and handset 

vendors, service providers, 

application developers, and 

investors alike and provides 

guidance on technology 

developments, policy issues, 

spectrum 

use, network 

operations and other 

business matters. 

During and exclusive interview 

with Teletimes Raheel has 

discusssed the achivements of 

Qualcomm and the prevailing 

trends as well. The interview is 

given below: 

Teletimes - Kindly elaborate as 

to what exactly Qualcomm is all 

about? 

Raheel Kamal - 

Qualcomm is the 

world’s largest fabless 

semiconductor company 

headquarted in San Diego, 

California and is #1 in the 

wireless sector with over 

$10 Billion annual revenues. 

Qualcomm has its presence 

in 139 locations worldwide. 

In a nut shell, Qualcomm is 

a technology development 

company and a value chain 

enabler. We invest heavily in 

the development of core mobile 

technologies, develop integrated 

chipsets and broadly license 

our Intellectual Property to our 

partners who bring end products 

to the consumers. To date, we 


15Apr - 14May 2011

have invested more than $16 

billion just in R&D. 

Qualcomm’s business model 

promotes competition and 

fosters continuous innovation 

and growth. This benefits the 

entire wireless industry by 

enabling more new players to 

enter the market. 

We have licensed over 190 

companies for CDMA, over 115 

companies for WCDMA /TD 

SCDMA and have 9 royalty 

bearing OFDM /OFDMA 

single mode subscriber 

and infrastructure 

licensees. 

TT - Now that we 

better understand 

what Qualcomm is 

about, can you please 

shed some more light 

on Qualcomm’s chipset 

solutions? 

RK - Qualcomm’s chipset 

solutions address the needs 

of both the emerging and the 

developed markets. On one 

end, the mobile devices based 

on Qualcomm chipsets enable 

extremely affordable feature 

rich phones for the mass 

markets in the emerging parts 

of the world like Pakistan and 

on the other end, our solution 

enable highly integrated 

Smartphones starting with 1GHz 

single core processors to Quad 

core processors each operating 

at processing speeds of 2.5 

Gigahertz per core. 

Qualcomm’s SoC (system on 

chip) solutions integrate CPUs, 

GPUs (Graphics), modems, 

audio, video, GPS and wireless 

capabilities as well as firmware 

In a nut 

shell, Qualcomm 

is a technology 

development company 

and a value chain 

enabler. 

and software drivers. 

The high level of integration 

allows Qualcomm to optimize 

the system level performance 

and power consumption, 

and ensures best possible 

performance of mobile devices. 

The complete SoC solution 

reduces development time and 

cost. 

Qualcomm ships over 400 

Million chipsets per month for 

the mobile devices and to date 

has shipped over 7 billion chips. 

Its chipsets support multiple 

high level operating systems 

including Windows Mobile 

/ Phone 7 and Android, etc. 

Over 750 device designs used 

Qualcomm chipsets in just 2010 

and more than 130 Android 

devices (Smartphones and 

Tablets) launched by various 

vendors are supported by 

Qualcomm chipsets. Qualcomm 

is the first company in the 

world to deliver true 3G/4G 

multimode chipsets. 

TT - What potential do you 

see in Pakistan for wireless 

communications in general 

and mobile broadband in 

particular? 

RK - Pakistan witnessed 

tremendous growth in the 

mobile sector when the two new 

licenses were auctioned over 

five years ago. However, the 

growth has been pretty much 

stagnant for the last couple 

of years due to the currently 

deployed 2G technology that 

does not allow for providing 

high bandwidth data intensive 

value added services and 

applications which is the need 

of the hour. The ARPUs have 

declined to very low levels 

as the operators do not have 

much to compete upon except 

lowering the tariffs on thir 

voice / SMS packages. This has 

resulted in a price war eroding 

operator’s margins. 

There is a large segment of the 

population in Pakistan that is 

interested in accessing Internet 

on the mobile phones but so 

far the high tariffs along with 

poor data speeds and the higher 

device prices have limited the 

uptake of data services. This 

is all set to change with the 

introduction of 3G technology in 

Pakistan. 

The need for Internet 

connectivity is obvious. The 

user demand for data is on 

a continuous rise globally 

including Pakistan. Consumers 

are willing to pay much higher 

prices for the access to data 

services than for voice. Access 

to data on the go goes a step 

further in terms of subscribers’ 

willingness to pay a premium 

for the broadband that comes 

with mobility. Laptops, tablets 

and Smartphones are replacing 

desktop computers as they 

provide ubiquitous connectivity 

regardless of the user location. 

The immense focus on education 

and the tech savvy younger 

15Apr - 14May 2011 


33

generation in Pakistan along 

with the affordable data tariffs 

that can be offered on 3G 

networks create the neces for 

the uptake of mobile broadband 

Internet. While this certainly 

will benefit the consumer, the 

mobile operators will surely reap 

the benefits with much higher 

data ARPUs. 

Over the last year, the 

Government of Pakistan 

has held various seminars 

and workshops for the 

telecom sector which have 

proven to be extremely 

vauable in developing 

an understanding of 

the technology and 

highlighting the need for 

immediate 3G network 

rollouts. 

The deployment of high 

speed mobile broadband 

networks will also bring 

Foreign Direct Investment 

in the country and will have 

avery positive impact on the 

economic growth. It will create 

opportunities for the local IT 

and software industry where 

the application developers 

will be able to put their skills 

to use with local applications 

development. 

TT - What is your take on 3G 

and 4G and what do you feel 

would be the right choice for 

Pakistan? 

RK - First of all, the mobile 

licenses in Pakistan are 

‘technology neutral’. The mobile 

operators have the discretion to 

choose whichever technology 

they wish to deploy, be it 3G or 

4G. However, there are a few 

considerations that need to be 

taken into account when talking 

about 3G and 4G. 

There is a lot of confusion about 

what is 3G and what is 4G. The 

ITU has recently determined 

that the term 4G could be used 

for the evolved 3G technologies 

referencing HSPA+ due to the 

evolution in the technology 

providing substantial level of 

improvement in performance. 

The specifications for the IMT 

Advanced technologies (LTE 

Advanced and WirelessMAN 

Advanced) will be finalized 

in its IRU R Recommendation 

expected in 2012. 

3G has an 

extremely 

robust 

ecosystem 

that includes 

many successful operators and 

innovative vendors/developers 

motivated by prospects 

of achieving significant 

scale; as a result, the 3G 

ecosystem continues to 

thrive despite current 

economic challenges. 

Currently, there are 

over 1.2 billion 3G 

subscribers in the 

world with over 665 

operators. According 

to industry analysts, 

the number of 3G 

subscriptions will reach 2.8 

billion by 2014. 

A key factor in choosing 

a given technology is the 

actual frequency spectrum 

that drives the decision due 

to availability of, or lack 

thereof, the infrastructure and 

devices. The current spectrum 

available in Pakistan that is 

under consideration, 2.1 GHz, 

for auction has been globally 

used for 3G / HSPA network 

deployments. There have been 

literally thousands of 3G devices 

including feature phones, smart 

phones, tablets, 

laptops with 

embedded 

3G modems, USB dongles, e 

Readers, etc., commercially 

available for so many years. 

In comparison, there is no 

deployment of LTE in this 

particular frequency band 

and no availability of any 

commercial device. 

I believe this presents a very 

clear choice of technology to the 

operators, i.e., HSPA+, whether 

you want to call it 3G or 4G. 

TT - While the government has 

clearly indicated 3G spectrum 

auction to take place this year, 

what challenges you see might 

arise for the operators towards 

adoption of 3G and what steps 

should be taken in order to 

make 3 a success in Pakistan? 

RK - The auction process 

has been delayed for far too 

long and that has created 

a challenge in itself. These 

delays create uncertainty 

and unpredictability of the 

government’s plans and 

make it very difficult for the 

operators an the rest of the 

industry that is linked with it, 

to plan anything. The delay in 

licensing is not only depriving 

the consumers to access a wide 

range of high speed mobile 

broadband services on latest 

and advanced devices but is also 

hampering the economic growth. 

One of the operators’ 

concerns has 

been the 

There is a lot of 

confusion about what is 3G 

and what is 4G. The ITU has recently 

determined that the term 4G could be 

used for the evolved 3G technologies 

referencing HSPA+ due to the evolution 

in the technology providing 

substantial level of improvement 

in performance. 

anticipated 

bid amount for 

the 3G spectrum. 

A 

reasonable 

amount will make it a win win 

situation for all stake holders. 

Once the auction process is 

completed, the operators will 

need to do proper network 


15Apr - 14May 2011

planning and optimization 

to ensure excellent quality of 

service is experienced by the 

users. 

The introduction of appropriate 

handsets with relevant 

applications and services that 

provide value to the subscribers 

would be the key for the 3G 

uptake. 

TT - What do you think will be 

the best way for the operators 

to increase the ARPU with 3G / 

4G network deployments? 

RK - As I mentioned earlier, 

although the recent price wars 

amongst operators have severely 

affected the operators’ ARPUs, 

there is definitely willingness 

on consumers part to pay 

more for the data services. The 

data ARPU for operators who 

have deployed CDMA EV‐DO 

networks in Pakistan are 

enjoying far greater ARPU levels 

which are a very clear indication 

of the affordability and desire 

f the Pakistani customer to use 

data centric services. However, 

this can only be achieved on 

platforms capable of offering 

mobile broadband access. 

TT - With GSM dominating 

the current telecom 

landscape, don’t you feel 

scarce availability of 

the 3G mobile handsets 

would be another 

issue? 

RK - Good question. 

GSM growth has 

been excellent in the 

recent past, but every 

technology has a life span 

and same is the case with 

GSM just like AMPS and 

TDMA which were replaced 

by GSM. 

3G handsets have been in 

circulation in Pakistan for quite 

some time even though there is 

no 3G network as they are all 

backward / forward compatible. 

These handsets are being 

used as 2G / GSM handsets in 

the absence of 3G networks. 

However, these are higher 

tier handsets and the primary 

concern is to entertain low 

and mid tier consumers which 

constitute the major chunk 

of the operator’s subscriber 

base and have lower 

affordability. 

Over the last few 

years, Qualcomm has 

been continuously 

investing in R&D 

to develop 3G 

devices which can 

be afforded by 

the masses. The 

price differential 

has significantly 

reduced in the last 

couple of years and 

continues to come down 

as 3G handset shipment take 

over the 2G handset shipments 

globally. 3G handsets are now 

becoming available at a very 

affordable price point for 

the Pakistani 

consumer 

base that would the 

target or the 3G services. 

The operators have already 

started introducing lower cost 

3G handsets that are based 

on Android platform offering 

consumers a huge variety of 

applications and services. A 

GSM growth has 

been excellent in the recent 

past, but every technology has 

a life span and same is the case 

with GSM just like AMPS 

and TDMA which were 

replaced by GSM. 

lot of local brands have been 

introduced in Pakistan which 

offer wide range 

of features 

at very 

low prices. Qualcomm has been 

enabling its licensees / OEMs to 

produce mass market 3G devices 

which have started to become 

commercially available. 

There are opportunities for local 

investors to start exploring local 

assembly of 3G devices leading 

to eventual manufacturing 

pants in Pakistan. Mass 

production of these 

devices along with 

elimination of 

custom duties will 

aid in achieving 

economies of 

scale which can 

help in bringing 

the costs 

down further. 

While initially it 

may seem like a 

daunting task but it 

can be implemented in 

steps and with appropriate 

planning. 

To jump start the process, 

one way is to initiate local 

assembly with the help of 

established and experienced 

OEMs. A lot of regional OEMs 

which are Qualcomm licensee 

have visited Pakistan and 

offered support in this regard. 

Necessary steps can also be 

taken at the government level 

to facilitate this approach, an 

example of that may include 

reduction / elimination 

of taxes and subsidizing 

products, maybe with 

the help of USF, that 

are locally assembled 

/ manufactured and 

provide mobile broadband 

connectivity. 

Additionally, some other 

approaches like Advertising 

models can also be used to 

subsidize the device and the 

service costs to the consumer. 

TT - While you have covered 

all question marks circling 

Pakistan’s road to 3G, based 

on our personnel experience a 

small segment of the industry is 

of the opinion that the country 

should delay or bypass 3G and 

move directly to 4G since it 

offers higher data through puts. 

What would be your take on 

this? 

15Apr - 14May 2011 


35

RK - In addition to what I have 

described above regarding the 

3G versus 4G issue, we see LTE 

as a complimentary technology 

to address growing data 

demand. In addition to requiring 

the spectrum in which LTE 

devices are available and the 

need for much bigger chunks of 

spectrum to acieve performance 

improvement, the device costs 

and affordability would be a 

key consideration for Pakistan. 

Until we see economies of scale 

for LTE, the device prices will be 

significantly higher than 3G for 

the years to come as they are 

based on high end multimode 

chipsets and definitely be out 

of range for the majority of the 

consumer base in Pakistan. 

TT - On a separate note since 

Qualcomm is the preliminary 

body behind the development 

of CDMA technology, our 

WLL operators which 

are mainly operating on 

CDMA and currently 

not flourishing to the 

expected level, what kind 

of support is QUALCOMM 

offering in this area? 

RK - It is true that the 

CDMA WLL networks 

have not enjoyed the 

same growth as GSM. 

This is unfortunately due 

to regulatory restrictions on 

CDMA networks and devices, 

and not technology limitations, 

which have restricted the 

growth. Recently, PTCL has 

launched the latest version of 

CDMA EVDO Rev. B, capable of 

offering data speeds up to 9.3 

Mbps, which is almost 10 times 

faster than any other technology 

deployed in the country. This 

service, branded as evo Nitro is 

enjoying rapid growth and the 

Pakistani consumer is finally 

able to enjoy true broadband. 

Voice has become a commodity 

now and the consumer is 

demanding mobile broadband 

data. To maximize the utility 

of existing CDMA/EVDO 

platforms, the principal 

requirement is the introduction 

of CDMA data terminals. 

Qualcomm is actively supporting 

the CDMA ecosystem and has 

recently assisted operators 

in implementing the OMH 

initiative in cllaboration with 

the GHRC (Global Handset 

requirement for CDMA) 

team, which is a CDG (CDMA 

development group) component, 

to make it easy for the 

consumers to buy, upgrade 

and replace their CDMA based 

devices. 

TT - Talking about High 

speed mobile 

data 

applications, 

if I were to ask you to 

pick one service which you feel 

can revolutionize or make an 

immediate impact, what would 

that be? 

RK - There is no ‘one killer 

app’ for all mobile customers 

as I see it. In my view, “data” 

itself is a killer app, over which 

a very wide range of high 

speed mobile data services 

are offered. These services do 

exceptionally well where 3G has 

been launched. The range of 

applications are wide and varied 

to include mHealth, Education, 

Entertainment, Gaming, 

eCommerce, eGov, Location 

based services, etc. 

In the very near future, we will 

have “Internet of Everything”, 

which represents the next era 

of networking and computing, 

where everything will be 

connected through advanced 

wireless technologies, sensors, 

and applications which will 

enable real time exchange of 

information. 

All key market segments 

like Consumer 

Electronics, 

Transportation / Telematics, 

Smart Grids / Meters, Home 

and Commercial building, 

Wireless Health, Asset Tracking 

& Security, 

Video Surveillance, Vending 

machines, ATMs, will be 

connected intelligently and 

wirelessly. 

The mobile networks will be at 

the heart of this information 

exchange and will need to 

provide the high speed data 

bandwidth to carry all this 

traffic. To be able to bring 

Pakistan at par with the other 

nations and offer these services 

to the Pakistani consumers, 

we need to proceed faster 

and deploy mobile broadband 

networks, otherwise Pakistan 

will be left far behind in the 

technology race. 

TT - One last question, how has 

Qualcomm contributed towards 

educating and assisting the 

local telecom community? 

RK - In addition to all the 

above, Qualcomm has been 

assisting the industry in 

providing awareness about 

the technology evolution 

by supporting seminars, 

workshops and other 

initiatives. 

We have also set up one 

of a kind 3G training 

centre in collaboration 

with the Central Asian 

Cellular Forum and the 

IQRA Univerity that 

not only caters to the 

telecom needs of the 

country but the region. 

This is a true example 

of Industry Academia 

relationship. 

We are also facilitating the 

development of the entire 

mobile broadband ecosystem 

with active engagement with 

the IT professionls and the 

application developers / 

service providers who develop 

mobile applications that have 

applicability for both the local 

and the international markets. 

We have also introduced our 

OEMs to the local operators 

and distributors that offer 

innovative and affordable 3G 

products that uit the needs of 

the Pakistani consumer. 

TT - Thank you for your time 

and sharing your views with 

our readers. 

RK - Thank you. It was indeed 

a pleasure! T 


15Apr - 14May 2011

19th Convergence India 2011 Expo 

highlights growing significance of Broadband 

The 19th Convergence India 

2011 Expo organized by 

Exhibitions India Group held at 

Pragati Maidan, New Delhi was 

the emerging role of Broadband 

Wireless Access (BWA) was 

topical and definitive at the 

opening ceremony of the 19th 

Convergence India 2011 Expo 

that is Envisaging a future for 

the communications industry to 

be data heavy, Hon’ble Minister 

Shri Sachin Pilot emphatically 

pointed during the inauguration 

that, “ less than 1% Broadband 

connectivity is unacceptable”. 

Admitting that the technology 

agnostic government needs 

to adapt itself to the latest 

developments, he said 

“Convergence has happened 

much faster than anyone 

expected”. However, Indian 

ICT industry has all the 

ingredients to lead from the 

front. Hailed as South Asia’s 

largest event on information 

and communications 

technology, the 19th edition 

of Convergence India expos 

continues to make difference 

in the lives of ordinary men, 

by showcasing and promoting 

innovative technologies and 

new applications. 

Looking ahead at the huge 

potential of BWA in India, 

the Minister further said, 

“different parts of the country 

have different definition (for 

Broadband).However, it should 

make tangible difference in 

people’s lives we are targeting.” 

India offers a large market 

place for all the stakeholders 

in the communication value 

chain. It is time for ICT players 

and regulators of Government 

of India to take collaborative 

efforts to provide high speed 

broadband services in rural 

areas and best services at the 

most affordable price. 

Reiterating the significance 

of growing importance of 

Broadband in India Mr Robin 

Mersh, CEO Broadband Forum 

speaking in India for the first 

time said, “India’s growth in 

broadband in 2010- second 

only to China and the United 

States-is leading towards the 

country soon becoming one of 

the top ten users of broadband 

in the world.” India added more 

than 2.5 million new lines of 

broadband last year and now 

stands at No 13 in the worldhaving 

been barely in the top 

50 of broadband countries just 

six years ago. 

“There has been tremendous 

and consistent growth in the 

broadband across India in 

recent years, yet this is just the 

tip of the iceberg” he added. Mr 

Mersh was speaking in India 

for the first time at the 19th 

Convergence India Expo. 

Over 430 participants 

representing the Telecom, 

IT, Broadcast, Media & 

Entertainment, Green IT, 

Security & Surveillance, Cable, 

Satellite, IP Surveillance and 

Information Security sectors 

of 25 countries have gathered 

on this international platform 

to showcase cutting edge 

technologies, products & 

services. 

The power-packed inaugural 

panel conference on “ NextGen 

applications…Empowering a 

Billion Lives” was attended by 

industry stalwats such as J S 

Sarma, Chairman (TRAI); Akhil 

Gupta, Deputy Group CEO& 

MD(Bharti Enterprises); Rajiv 

Bawa, EVP & Head Corporate 

Affairs (Uninor); Declan 

Byrne, Director Marketing 

(Wimax Forum); Gunter 

Kleindl, Chairman ( ETSI 

Technical Committee DECT); 

Rajan S Mathew, Director 

General (COAI); Robin Mersh, 

CEO (Broadband Forum) 

and Weimin Ying, President 

LTE Solution ( Huawei 

Telecommunications). 

Fulfilling its long-standing 

mandate as a premier 

knowledge sharing forum, the 

Hena Ahmad 

inaugural conference of the 19th 

Convergence India 2011 was 

also a launching pad for the 

release of the industry white 

paper prepared by Shiv Putcha, 

Principal Analysts, Ovum and 

titled “3G Gets Underway in 

India”. 

The event attracted a huge 

number of trade visitors 

. Hon’ble Minister Shri 

Kapil Sibal, Minister of 

Communications & Information 

Technology, Government of 

India 

The 19th Convergence India 

2011 Expo organized by the 

Exhibitions India Group, 

was buzzing with businessto-business 

interactions. 

In addition to Telecom and 

Broadcasting, the exhibition 

floor had strong presence 

from the Broadband and LTE 

companies. The focus of the 

industry towards the two 

technologies clearly indicates 

the emerging trends and the 

growth path for the ICT sector. 

At the concurrently held 

conference, a special session 

was conducted by Huawei 

Telecommunications to highlight 

strategies for successful 

implementation of LTE 

technology. The conference 

also covered discussions on 

digitalization,3G ,wireless 

broadband, network health, 

VAS, rural infrastructure and 

green ICT. 

India has over 300,000 

telecom towers for which 

implementation of green 

solutions is a daunting task. 

With over 15 million telecom 

subscribers being added 

every month there would be 

a corresponding need to add 

over 13,000 BTS’ per month. 


15Apr - 14May 2011

This would translate to diesel 

consumption of a staggering 

figure of 6 million litres on a 

monthly basis. 

There was a general consensus 

in the telecom industry on the 

business case for going green. 

Operators who have been 

looking at energy saving options 

to reduce their opex felt, around 

25% -30% reductions were 

achievable through green energy 

options. The amount of savings 

for a pan-India operator, based 

on this magnitude, would 

translate into over Rs. 1 billion 

per quarter. 

According to Mr. Rajat K. 

Mukarji, Chief Corporate Affairs 

Officer, Idea Cellular Ltd., there 

is no single green solution 

(wind, solar, bio-fuels etc.) 

that can be implemented on 

a nationwide basis due to the 

diverse conditions in terms of 

climate, resources, geography 

etc. He emphasized on the need 

for a forward looking telecom 

policy that embraces this reality. 

Huge amount of investments 

and clear roadmap would be 

required to implement green 

solutions in the telecom sector. 

The moot point taken up at 

the session was to identify 

the key drivers. Mr. Mukarji 

asserted that the Indian Govt. 

needs to give stimulus to 

these efforts. According to Mr. 

Sandeep Kashyap, CTO, Acme 

Tele Power Ltd. we need to view 

the problem in a collaborative 

manner. All stakeholders 

including consumers, IP-1 

players, service providers and 

vendors need to play their part. 

Mr. Arun Kumar, AGM-R&D, 

ITI Ltd. advocated the idea 

of active sharing where two 

operators share equipment such 

as feeder cables, nodes and 

RAN Tx Systems. This has been 

implemented quite successfully 

in overseas markets. Mr. Danesh 

Bansal, CTO, Indus Towers Ltd. 

put forth an idea to combat 

the challenge of alternative 

fuel logistics i.e. distributing 

or accessing the alternative 

energy source for multiple sites. 

According to him the concept 

of a ‘Green Fuel Hub’ shared 

by telecom operators should be 

explored. T 

15Apr - 14May 2011 


39

Etisalat 

general assembly approves dividends at 60% 

The General Assembly of 

Etisalat has approved the 

recommendation of the Board of 

Directors to distribute dividends 

at 35% of nominal share value 

for the second half of 2010. 

This makes the total dividend 

awarded by Etisalat in 2010 to 

be 60%. 

Mohammad Omran commented: 

“On behalf of Etisalat board 

members, I would like to thank 

the leadership of the UAE and 

the UAE government for their 

significant ongoing efforts to 

continue to enhance the leading 

position of the UAE, and also 

for their ongoing strives to 

support the technology and ICT 

sector in the UAE, particularly 

through its advanced laws and 

regulations.” 

“Further to our efforts to 

include our shareholders in the 

benefits, we have proposed 

a final dividend of AED 0.35 

per share, bringing the total 

dividends for the year to AED 

0.60, in line with our policy in 

previous years. This represents 

a dividend yield of 6% at the 

year-end stock price. We are 

pleased that total share returns 

for the 12-month period ended 

December 31, 2010, including 

capital gains and dividends, 

were a healthy 13%.” 

“This year Etisalat has 

witnessed positive growth in 

new customer acquisition and 

revenues. In Egypt, for example, 

Etisalat Misr celebrated its 15 

million customer milestone, 

and the subsidiary reached 

break-even point after only 

three years of operations. 

Among consolidated operations 

where we exercise management 

control, the customer base 

has increased by 30% while 

revenues increased 46%. It is 

notable that our international 

operations make up 23% of the 

Group’s top-line results.” 

Omran discussed Etisalat’s 

financial position, commenting: 

“In line with past years, Etisalat 

has maintained its very strong 

cash position, a strategy that 

is especially relevant given 

the recent state of financial 

turmoil worldwide. Our healthy 

balance sheet has served as 

a cushion against the recent 

financial shocks, and allowed 

us to comfortably finance 

our operations and capital 

investments. As a testament 

to our financial health, we 

maintained our investmentgrade 

credit rating and positive 

outlook from the three major 

credit rating agencies.” 

“The growth was offset though 

by the revenue and earnings 

decline in our flagship UAE 

operation – which is natural and 

expected as our home market 

has entered an advanced stage 

of saturation and maturity. 

As a result, mobile and fixed 

services witnessed a modest 

decline in operations. Etisalat 

UAE management has taken 

proactive measures to meet this 

new challenge,” he continued. 

When discussing technology 

advancements, Omran 

commented: “We carried on our 

strategy of investing rationally 

in our network infrastructure 

to capture organic demand 

within AED 5.8 billion in 

capital expenditure. Notably, 

we continued to invest in 

our country-wide fibreoptic 

network as part of our 

commitment to keep the UAE at 

the global forefront of stateof-the-art 

telecommunication 

services.” 

Omran then went into details 

about Etisalat’s acquisition 

strategy, saying: “The 

corporation maintained its 

prudent approach to evaluating 

acquisition opportunities that 

are in line with its strategy to 

expand internationally and add 

value to its operations portfolio, 

as well as several strategic stake 

increases to our existing assets.” 

Nasser Bin Obood, Acting Chief 

Executive Officer, Etisalat, 

commented: “Etisalat continued 

its strong track record given 

the challenges during 2010, 

exhibiting strong performance 

in the period under review. We 

are confident that Etisalat is 

poised to dynamically adapt to 

the evolving industry landscape 

and our business environment.” 

“In general, the global 

telecommunications industry 

witnessed a slowdown due 

to various conditions that 

impacted an already highly 

saturated UAE market, where 

penetration levels are the 

highest in the region. This 

consequently affected overall 

performance. In response to this 

effect Etisalat has been working 

on innovating new packages 

and services such as valueadded 

and broadband services, 

which should lead to balancing 

revenues and profits.” 

“That being said, Etisalat 

faced local competition 

under scrupulous regulations, 

including increasing pressure 

on international tariffs from 

competition and Voice over 

Internet Protocol (VoIP) usage. 

The market also witnessed 

competition in mobile 

data, with a focus on smart 

phones, which led to voice 

revenue disruption in favour 

of data revenues – a natural 

phenomenon in light of the 

technological advancement 

and introduction of a new 

generation of services and 

handset equipment, continued 

Bin Obood. T 


15Apr - 14May 2011

Etisalat infrastructure enables the future of E-Education 

Etisalat offers a vision of next generation learning at MENA ICT in Damascus 

The Etisalat Group’s 

Senior Vice President for 

Corporate Communications, 

Ahmed bin Ali, today presented 

a vision for the future of 

education in the Middle East 

region. Providing several 

examples of how technology is 

empowering tens of thousands 

of students located in the 

UAE and Etisalat’s other 17 

international markets, Ahmed 

bin Ali alerted the delegates of 

the MENA ICT Forum that the 

education is now intrinsically 

linked to technology. 

Ahmed bin Ali, Group Senior 

Vice President Corporate 

Communications at Etisalat 

said: “The youth of today 

are using electronic media 

more than any other source 

of knowledge. The fact is, 

even if schools do not provide 

electronic teaching resources 

students will still proactively 

use the Internet, social media 

and electronic books to learn. 

Traditional learning techniques 

and schools without an 

E-Education framework are on 

the verge of being consigned 

to the very history books that 

they try to teach from. This 

makes fiber optic networks 

and 4G mobile broadband key 

technologies to be promoted 

by regional governments in the 

coming decade.” 

Ahmed addressed hundreds of 

senior government officials and 

senior representatives of public 

and private sector companies 

from across the Middle East 

in panel which he shared with 

other leading proponents of 

e-learning. This took place at 

the third annual MENA ICT 

Conference which this year 

took place in Damascus, Syria 

Etisalat addresses 

Etisalat’s Group Senior Vice 

President Ahmed bin Ali has 

addressed the 4th COMESA 

Investment Forum which took 

place today at the Madinat 

Jumeirah in Dubai. The 

conference was attended by 

a number of dignitaries and 

Ministers from the UAE and 

across the African continent 

as well as business leaders and 

investors from the region. 

During the opening keynote 

panel Ahmed bin Ali presented 

the case for Etisalat’s ongoing 

investment and expansion 

across the continent which 

began in 1999. 

Bin Ali explained: “Mobile 

telephony will continue 

to be the key enabler for 

both individual customers 

and businesses in Africa. 

The continent is currently 

witnessing tremendous growth 

and there is potential both 

to acquire new, first time 

customers and also to provide 

value added services and 

broadband,” he said. 

Bin Ali went onto discuss the 

positive experience Etisalat 

and which was organized by 

The Arab ICT Organization 

(IJMA3). This year MENA ICT 

was held in conjunction with in 

cooperation with the World IT 

and Services Alliance (WITSA), 

the Syrian Computer Society 

(SCS), and United Nations 

ESCWA organization. 

The Etisalat Group is working 

with education providers in 

the UAE to provide access 

to new learning tools. In 

particular, the UAE’s National 

Research and Education 

Network (NREN) which is 

also known as ‘Ankobut’ 

provides dedicated Internet 

access for higher education 

4th COMESA Investment Forum in Dubai 

has had in the emerging 

markets of Africa such as 

Egypt, Sudan and Tanzania. In 

Sudan, Etisalat has expanded 

its fiber optic network inside 

Khartoum and introduced a 

new internet gateway which 

has attracted new corporate 

customers in the oil, banking 

and education sectors. It is 

also providing International 

Services and Wholesale 

capacity to other operators 

empowered by its submarine 

cable landing station at Port 

Sudan. Etisalat’s Egyptian 

providers and a connection to 

international research networks 

to enable a greater level of 

participation from the UAE 

in global research initiatives. 

Etisalat is also making efforts 

to proliferate mobile learning 

tools through workshops with 

leading establishments and 

partnerships with innovative 

e-education companies. 

Etisalat’s subsidiaries in 

Nigeria, Sri Lanka and Pakistan 

offer clear examples of the 

Etisalat Group’s commitment 

to education. In West 

Africa, Etisalat has adopted 

several schools and is helping 

to enhance the learning 

infrastructure there. In Asia, 

Etisalat subsidiaries are 

creating Etisalat Knowledge 

Centres and providing access 

to educational materials at 

the Grassroots level. It is 

also working with leading 

multinationals to create 

opportunities for research and 

development through a Centre 

for Excellence for Internet 

Technologies. T 

operations have accrued over 

15 million customers in less 

than four years despite it 

being the third entrant to the 

Egyptian market. 

Building on these successes 

Etisalat has extended it 

services in more African 

countries including Nigeria, 

Benin, Burkina Faso, Niger, 

Togo, Gabon, Central Africa 

and the Ivory Coast. It now 

employs over 6,000 people 

who provide services to around 

35 million mobile subscribers 

across these markets. T 

15Apr - 14May 2011 


41

Telecom operators around 

the world are striving to 

reach market share, revenue and 

EBITDA target in an increasingly 

competitive environment. This 

impels companies to cut costs 

while differentiating in key areas 

and to move away from noncore 

activities that allow little 

or no differentiation and do not 

impact bottom-line KPIs in a 

direct and tangible way. 

This strategy has supported 

the outsourcing option in most 

levels of the telecom value 

chain such as network infrastructure, 

customer service and 

management of own or branded 

shops. In this way, operators 

are focused on the core drivers 

of their business while leveraging 

on external specialists to 

deliver in non-core areas. The 

branded channel is critical for 

any operator as it is the main 

point of contact with customers 

and has significant weightage 

on opex (1-3% of an operator’s 

revenues) and capex (a shop 

can cost around $100,000). 

Outsourcing of the branded 

channel gained momentum with 

the realisation from operators 

that the required know-how 

to manage shops successfully 

around HR, stock optimisation 

and trade promotions, was not 

present in their organisations. 

For example, annual staff turnover 

levels in telecom operators 

are around 10-15% while 

in technology retailers these 

figures can go up to 50-60%, 

which poses a completely different 

challenge on staff selection 

and recruiting. 

At the same time, salary 

schemes in operators usually 

account for 10-20% of variable 

compensation while best 

practices in the retail industry 

suggest levels of 70-80% to 

ensure proper motivation of the 

front-end personnel. Although 

the two businesses – telecom 

service provider and telecom 

retail – are linked on the product 

side, they differ in the key 

drivers. 

As soon as telecom operators 

realised this, new players 

emerged as “sales partners” 

in the branded channel. In an 

outsourced model, sales partners 

are responsible for managing 

and operating the branded channel 

(commonly known as operators’ 

stores or “own” stores) on 

behalf of the operator. 

Capturing the benefits 

In addition to allowing operators 

to focus on key areas of 

their business, outsourcing the 

management of the shops often 

facilitate roll-out of the branded 

channel since part of the responsibilities 

in the roll-out program 

are transferred to external partners. 

On top of that, the roll-out 

can be achieved at relatively low 

expense when some of the rollout 

costs are also transferred 

to the partners (for example, 

through franchise fees or by 

charging civil work costs), which 

reduces investment in new outlets 

often by more than 50%. 

As a result, telecom operators 

manage to finance expansions 

of the branded channel and 

even reduce roll-out timelines 

quite significantly. For instance, 

Orange and O2 in developed 

markets or MTN and Etisalat 

in emerging markets have all 

Josep Que 

Talking shop 

Many operators outsource their retail presence to 

cut opex, but the strategy can pose significant risks 

added stores managed by external 

partners to their established 

network of company-owned 

outlets in a way to support 

expansion. 

External partners also typically 

have know-how related 

to the local market which not 

only streamlines the process of 

identifying and securing a new 

location but also allows managing 

shop operations in alignment 

with local dynamics. In many 

diverse countries like South 

Africa, Jordan, Spain or Belgium, 

operators have even opted for 

regionally focused partners to 

manage branded shops due to 

the different characteristics of 

each region. 

The benefits of the outsource 

option are evident and tangible 

but there is no such thing as free 

lunch and one has to bear in 

mind the threats that lie behind. 

Threat 1: Potential hostage situation 

with strong sales partner 

With such clear advantages 

why would operators still opt 

to control the branded channel 

directly? 

MTN South Africa is one of the 

operators that can probably 

illustrate this well. When, in 

January 2009, MTN made the 

decision to acquire the remaining 

59% of iTalk, a distributor 

that managed more than 100 

of MTN exclusive stores, it 

knew the importance of gaining 

control and security over 

such a critical channel. Among 

other reasons, MTN wanted to 

avoid decisions regarding its 

premium channel that were not 

aligned with the company’s best 

interests. 

The early stages of the various 

outsourced models have often 

disguised its potential risks. 

South Africa is one of the countries 

where outsourcing models 

in branded channel are more 

mature and so also the early 

benefits were already captured 

and the effective risks are now 

taking place. 

Any external partner is profitdriven 

and can easily deviate 

from the initial strategy and 

engage in actions that go 

against the operators’ goals 

and therefore, compromise the 

branded shops, which represent 

the premium channel of any 

company and where one wrong 

action can have the most negative 

impact. 

For example, if a certain shop is 

not performing well, the company 

(or partner) managing it 

might prefer to shift its traffic to 

another shop and therefore push 

the operator to close it, while 

the latter is concerned about 

customer service, positioning 

and brand visibility. Often the 

operator will even agree on closing 

it in order to prevent disruptive 

actions that might harm the 

channel deeper. 

In some situations, operators 

see themselves in the hands 

of their “partners”, completely 

vulnerable to “their” will due 

to their weight and dominance 

of the sales channel. That is 

why many operators, especially 

in emerging markets, limit the 

share that a single partner can 

have and impose effective covenants 

to prevent “super-dealers” 

in the branded channel. T 


15Apr - 14May 2011

FTTH Council Europe 

will further address the urgent need for FTTH 

with new initiatives 

Chris Holden, re-elected President of the FTTH Council Europe, will lead the Council’s 

new initiatives supporting “Why fibre?” and “How fibre?” for the European consumers 

Chris Holden Nadia Babaali Hartwig Tauber 

At the General Assembly of 

the FTTH Council Europe 

the members have reaffirmed 

their commitment to continue 

the mission of the FTTH Council 

Europe to urge Europe to move 

to FTTH. With more detailed 

“Why Fibre & How Fibre” initiatives, 

the organisation will provide 

the necessary arguments 

and data to the broadband 

stakeholders to build Fibre to 

the Home networks. 

With Chris Holden as re-elected 

president and four newly 

elected board members, the 

FTTH Council Europe is ready to 

specifically focus on the main 

questions raised about fibre 

networks in Europe. The “WHY 

fibre?” initiative includes end 

user benefits of fibre connections, 

including new content and 

applications. The “HOW fibre?” 

proposal looks at both public 

and private financing options, 

and aims at better understanding 

the regulatory and policy 

frameworks. 

“During the past years the 

Council has become an accepted 

industry body on FTTH topics 

in Europe,” said Holden. “With 

our well established network to 

the European Commission, the 

regulators and the operators 

organisations, the FTTH Council 

Europe is in a perfect position 

to provide supporting data that 

will accelerate FTTH adoption in 

Europe.” 

The General Assembly was also 

the occasion to announce the 

renewed mandate of the contracted 

executive team, Hartwig 

Tauber, Director General, and 

Nadia Babaali, Communications 

Director, for the next two years. 

“A strong board of directors, a 

broad support from our 150 industry 

members and continuity 

in the person of the President 

will enable the FTTH Council 

Europe to implement a compelling 

working plan in 2011”, adds 

Hartwig Tauber, Director General, 

“and we can already promise 

that the FTTH Conference in 

Munich on 14-16 February 2012 

will include the presentation of 

several studies with high impact 

on the fibre market.” 

The new Board of Directors 

consists of the following 9 

members: 

• Chris Holden, Corning Ltd, 

UK – President of the Board 

• Karin Ahl, Rala Infratech, 

Sweden - Treasurer 

• Eric Festraets, Alcatel-Lucent, 

Belgium 

• Pastora Valero, Cisco Systems, 

Belgium 

• Rolf Johansson, Ericsson, 

Sweden 

• Paul Schwartz, ICOTERA, 

Denmark 

• Sophie Pautonnier, Mitsubishi 

Electric, France 

• Jouni Heinonen, Plumettaz, 

Switzerland 

• Albert Grooten, Prysmian 

Cables and Systems, The 

Netherlands 

The new Working Committee 

Chairs are: 

• Paolo Sebben, Switzerland, 

Chair of the Business Committee 

• Wolfgang Fischer, Germany, 

Chair of the Content and Applications 

Committee 

• Cristina Deac, Romania, Chair 

of the Deployment & Operations 

Committee 

• Jan Schindler, The Netherlands, 

Chair of the Market 

Intelligence Committee 

• Hartwig Tauber, Austria, 

Chair of the Policy & Regulation 

Experts Group 

Companies and organisations 

that develop FTTH-enabled 

services and applications for 

businesses and end users, such 

as eHealth, online gaming, 

interactive TV etc. are welcome 

to participate in the work of 

the Content and Applications 

Committee, even if they are not 

members of the FTTH Council 

Europe. 

15Apr - 14May 2011 


43

Batelco and du enter into 

interconnection partnership 

The agreement will provide end-to-end services to Bahrain and 

UAE-based businesses for secure inter-office connectivity 

Demonstrating its position as 

a provider of cutting-edge 

services, Batelco has announced 

the launch of MPLS IP VPN 

Interconnectivity, in partnership 

with UAE based telecoms company 

du, which aims to further 

enable both parties to extend 

corporate VPN solutions between 

their respective markets. 

This agreement will provide 

state-of-the-art, end-to-end 

MPLS VPN services to Bahrain 

and UAE -based businesses that 

wish to establish secure interoffice 

connectivity between 

both locations. 

Adel Daylami, General Manager 

Enterprise, Batelco Bahrain, 

said, “This strategic bi-lateral 

understanding is an important 

addition to Batelco’s portfolio of 

OSS agreements, which enable 

us to extend our Global IP VPN 

solution to our international 

customers through our partner’s 

reliable, state of the art 

network.” 

“Accordingly, the benefit of 

Batelco and du’s shared network 

can be extended to our international 

customers.” 

“This agreement complements 

Batelco’s range of global connectivity 

services such as Global 

IP-VPN, IPLC, Global Satellite 

services and a Global Datacenter 

that not only enhances 

efficiency by offering seamless, 

secure and dedicated interconnectivity 

but also the reliable 

support of a professional team 

working 24x7 in one of the regions 

most sophisticated NOC’s 

(Network Operation Centre’s). 

Farid Faraidooni, Chief Commercial 

Officer, du, commented by 

saying: “We are pleased to offer 

a carrier grade MPLS VPN solution 

to our UAE-based business 

customers, as well as providing 

Indian mobile network operator 

Idea Celluar has launched 

3G services in Madhya Pradesh, 

Chattisgarh, Gujarat and 

Haryana. 

The company has also introduced 

data and time-based billing 

plan for 3G services enabling 

users to avail high-end data 

services. 

Idea has planned a pan India 

roll out of 3G services in 200 

towns by April. Next year, it 

aims to launch 3G services in 

4,000 towns. 

Idea said it was finalising agreements 

with other operators to 

offer 3G services beyond its 11 

zones. The high-speed services 

allow users faster Internet 

browsing on mobile phones and 

services such as video calls. 

The 2G spectrum case 

The Telecom Ministry will take 

a final decision on 2G spectrum 

pricing and on those holding airwaves 

beyond contracted limit 

of 6.2 Mhz, based on recommendations 

of TRAI, within 

next three months before 

seeking Telecom Commission’s 

approval. 

our carrier partners with a onestop-shop 

solution for transit 

services into Bahrain. This facility, 

which will provide seamless 

IP data services between UAE 

and Bahrain, demonstrates our 

commitment to providing topof-the-range, 

ultra-secure business 

solutions to our enterprise 

customers.” 

Signing this agreement with 

Batelco will allow bi-lateral 

Data IP Services to be sold 

between Bahrain and UAE, as 

well as providing one-stop-shop 

transit services to Batelco’s 

carrier partners. The partnership 

comes in line with Batelco’s 

International Carrier Relations 

(ICR) strategy, which focuses 

on the interconnection of GCC 

regional carrier MPLS networks 

in order to expand the company’s 

IP Data Services reach 

to all major GCC countries and 

provide seamless MPLS VPN 

India launches 3G services 

in MP, Chattisgarh and Haryana 

“Decision on 2G spectrum pricing 

is expected in next three 

months. DoT internal committee 

is finalising it. After we get it 

we will send the same to Telecom 

Commission,” Department 

services. 

Among the key benefits of the 

service for Batelco’s carrier partners 

in Bahrain are seamless IP 

data services between Bahrain 

and the UAE, greater reach in 

the respective markets for data 

service connectivity, competitive 

pricing (dependant on 

volumes and commitment) and 

a one-stop-shop offering for the 

advantage of all parties, where 

Batelco is the GCC partner of 

choice for services into UAE. 

In addition, Bahraini-based enterprise 

clients will benefit from 

the extension of carrier grade 

VPN to their UAE-based office, 

a multiple-purpose service offering 

to cater to different office 

applications, and competitive 

pricing, as well as a one-stopshop 

offering, where Batelco is 

the partner of choice for global 

VPN solutions. T 

of Telecommunications (DoT) 

Secretary R Chandrasekhar told 

media. 

Telecom regulator TRAI had 

recommended over six-fold 

increase in the spectrum price 

to Rs 10,972.45 crore for a 

pan-India license with 6.2 Mhz 

spectrum as compared to Rs 

1,658 crore now. 

In fact the regulator had classified 

valuation of spectrum in 

two categories. There are different 

prices for spectrum up to 

contracted limit of 6.2 Mhz and 

for additional airwaves. T 


15Apr - 14May 2011

Du launches 42 Mbps internet key 

Leading UAE telecom 

company du has launched 

the 42 Mbps internet key 

(also known as dongle or USB 

modem universally), which 

enables customers to avail the 

company’s high-speed real 

mobile broadband service. 

This new offering comes shortly 

after the company launched 

mobile broadband speeds of 

up to 42 Mbps, following the 

upgrade of its network to 

next-generation DC-HSPA+ 

technology, making du’s 

network the fastest in the UAE 

and propelling the UAE among 

the select few nations in the 

world to offer such a speed, a 

statement said. 

As a limited period 

introductory promotion, 

the 42Mbps Internet Key is 

available at a special price of 

Dh449 against the regular price 

of Dh699. 

“Now, du customers will 

be among the select few 

worldwide - and the first in 

the UAE - to enjoy mobile 

broadband speeds of up 

to 42 Mbps, which will 

greatly improve the quality 

of applications on-the-go, 

including games, TV, music 

and video media,” stated Farid 

Faraidooni, chief commercial 

officer, du. 

The Real Mobile Broadband 

Internet keys also allow 

customers to send and receive 

SMS from the lap-top, manage 

contacts, pay online, check 

balance and recharge of the 

Pay as you Go Data line. 

Each Internet key comes with 

memory included for data 

storage, giving customers 

the 2-in-1 convenience. For 

New mobile plan for women 

Integrated UAE telecom 

company du has launched 

its ‘Her Business Super Plan’ 

for women entrepreneurs and 

professionals. 

The new and vibrant mobile 

plan is specifically tailored to 

the requirements of modernday 

business women in the 

UAE (both UAE nationals and 

residents), providing benefits 

such as bundled calling 

minutes, business calling circle, 

free national data, shopping 

rewards, special offers on 

latest handsets and much 

more, all for just Dh200 per 

month. 

“We understand and value 

the role of women in the 

business and corporate world 

and recognise the valuable 

contribution of female 

entrepreneurs and corporate 

managers in large enterprises 

to the UAE’s flourishing 

business community,” said 

Hala Badri, EVP Brand and 

Communications, du. 

The new plan offers 400 

national minutes, 200 

international minutes, a choice 

between 2 GB of free national 

data per month or unlimited 

BlackBerry within the UAE, 

roaming benefits and smart 

phone bundle. 

Also, part of the offering is a 

‘first of its kind’ ‘Her Business 

Calling Circle’, a feature that 

offers all subscribers on the 

Her Business Super Plan free 

calling benefits. 

Customers can enjoy du’s 

special One World Plan, which 

offers a single flat rate of Dh 

1.25 per minute to 190 top 

a limited period, du is also 

offering an ‘Upgrade Offer’. 

Any customers who already 

own an Internet Key (USB 

Modem/Data Card), can trade 

it in for du’s new and faster 

one with 50 per cent off on the 

new Internet Key price. 

du’s real mobile broadband 

Internet keys are slim, uniquely 

designed that fit not just 

between the fingers; but also 

within the customers’ budget. 

Besides using the Internet 

Key to get connected to the 

internet within seconds, 

customers can also use it as 

a memory stick, making it 

a unique and handy 2-in-1 

device. T 

international destinations 

anytime, any day, along with 

One World One Rate plan 

which provides a single rate of 

just Dh 1.25 per minute for all 

incoming calls while roaming 

abroad. 

Three highly successful 

career women from the UAE 

have been named brand 

ambassadors for Her Business 

Super Plan including Nayla 

Al Khaja, the first female 

film producer/director in the 

UAE and founder and chief 

of D-Seven Motion Pictures; 

Shabana Karim, founder 

and owner of The Nail Spa 

and winner in the overall 

businesswomen category in the 

Emirates Women Award 2010; 

and Claire Fenner and Georgie 

Hearson, Heels & Deals cofounders 

and winners of Most 

Innovative Company Award at 

SME Stars of Business Award 

2010. T 

15Apr - 14May 2011 


45

Tier-1 Device Manufacturer Licenses Synchronica’s 

Windows Live Messenger (WLM) and Yahoo! Messenger Client 

Synchronica plc, the 

international provider 

of next-generation mobile 

messaging solutions, 

has received a purchase 

order from a tier-1 mobile 

phone manufacturer. The 

manufacturer, which shipped 

more than 100 million devices 

last year, is the first customer 

to place a new order for this 

technology since Synchronica’s 

acquisition of the Neustar NGM 

assets in February 2011. 

Synchronica will license its 

Java-based instant messaging 

client providing multiheaded 

access to Windows 

Live Messenger (WLM) and 

Yahoo! Messenger for one 

of the manufacturer’s new 

handsets. Synchronica receives 

professional services revenues 

and royalties based on device 

shipments. 

Synchronica signed an 

agreement to acquire the 

customer contracts, accounts, 

intellectual property, patents 

and software, and all other 

associated assets from 

Neustar NGM Services Ltd. 

The acquisition was designed 

to accelerate Synchronica’s 

entry into next generation RCS 

messaging, and also provide 

a springboard for Synchronica 

to expand its market focus to 

include prospects operating in 

developed markets. 

Synchronica intends to continue 

to support Neustar NGM’s open 

standards-based IM technology 

and plans to integrate key 

O3b Networks 

aiming to bring Broadband 

to poorer countries 

While satellite broadband 

is seen as a 

useful but flawed option for 

much of the developed world, 

it could be hugely beneficial 

to emerging nations that 

lack advanced broadband 

networks. One company 

aiming to bring broadband to 

poorer countries is O3b Networks 

(www.o3bnetworks. 

com), whose name stands for 

‘other 3 billion’, referring to 

the number of people in the 

world who don’t have regular 

access to the web. In December, 

2010, O3b secured $1.2bn 

worth of funding to proceed 

with the launch of eight satellites 

in the first half of 2013. 

HSBC and Google are among 

the company’s shareholders. 

O3b promises faster speeds 

than are currently available 

through satellite broadband 

because its satellites’ orbits 

will be four times nearer 

Earth than those of existing 

satellites. This will cut the 

latency time users endure 

when using the web via satellite. 

The company says it will 

offer its services to more than 

150 countries spread across 

Africa, Asia, Latin America 

and the Middle East. O3b 

says that its mission “is to 

make the internet accessible 

and affordable to those 

who remain cut off from the 

information highway. We will 

enable individuals, families, 

communities and nations to 

enrich their quality of life 

through greater interactivity 

with the global community”. T 

Carsten-Brinkschulte 

elements of the software into 

Synchronica’s award-winning 

Mobile Gateway infrastructure 

software. Synchronica will also 

propose a roadmap to existing 

customers which will see them 

transition to Synchronica 

Mobile Gateway, and extend 

their range of services from IM 

French incumbent, Orange 

Group, and its partner Agility, 

plan to acquire a 44% stake 

in Iraq’s third mobile operator, 

Korek Telecom. The two companies 

have signed a binding 

agreement with Korek Telecom. 

Orange and Agility are to form a 

46:54 joint venture that will provide 

Korek Telecom with the new 

capital from its 44% equity. The 

closing of the deal is subject to 

approval of the Iraqi Communications 

and Media Commission, 

and is expected to take place in 

the next few weeks. 

Under the terms of the agreement, 

Orange is to contribute its 

marketing, commercial and technical 

expertise to Korek Telecom 

in the already operational Kurdistan 

region of Iraq while also 

extending it to the rest of the 

Lindsey Lee 

to push Email, Synchronization 

and Social Networking. 

Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO of 

Synchronica, comments: “We’re 

pleased to have received an 

order so quickly after acquiring 

Neustar NGM’s assets. We 

are excited about the increase 

in business with device 

manufacturers and the takeuprate 

of our instant messaging 

services resulting from preinstallation 

of our products on 

mass-market handsets. Our 

relationship with Tier-1 handset 

manufacturers demonstrates 

the strengthened position of 

Synchronica in this market and 

provides substantial synergy 

with our rapidly expanding 

operator customer base.” T 

Orange and Agility to buy 

44% stake in Korek 

The binding deal is part of the Iraqi mobile 

operator’s expansion plans 

country. The population of the 

Kurdistan region and the rest of 

the country total 5 million and 

33 million respectively. 

Stephane Richard, chairman 

and CEO of Orange, said: “The 

acquisition of this stake in 

Korek Telecom is a new step in 

our policy of expansion outside 

Europe, and contributes to our 

stated aim of doubling our revenues 

in Africa and the Middle 

East by 2015.” T 


15Apr - 14May 2011

Amman is unlikely hotspot 

for technology startups 

Once a technology wasteland, 

Amman is now home to 

a growing number of internet 

startups. Their young founders 

credit a more liberal government 

and lower seed costs. 

“Amman’s different than other 

places because we’ve got good 

leadership and better education 

- we produce engineers who’ve 

been producing tech work before 

they even leave school,” Fouad 

Jeryes, chief of social networking 

platform d1g.com. 

King Abdullah - younger than 

other kings in the region, 

British-educated, with a wife 

who Tweets regularly under 

the handle @QueenRania - told 

the BBC in 2004 that he hoped 

to make his country the tech 

hub of the Middle East. That 

year, he instituted an education 

programme he called “big ideas 

for a little country,” which 

saw private companies donate 

computers to local schools and a 

software curriculum designed to 

be taught alongside traditional 

subjects. “The King is a regional 

leader - very tech savvy, very 

much caring about how tech 

can move forward,” Jeryes said. 

“In the last two years, growth 

has been big.” Very big - he 

estimated that the number 

of startups had increased by 

1825%, compared to about 

430% in the rest of the world. 

Kamel Al-Asmar, an Amman 

native with two local startups 

under his belt - Nakweh.com 

and Ideation Box, said it was 

easier and less expensive to 

start a company in Jordan than 

a traditional tech hotspot like 

Dubai, which boasts a 120% 

mobile penetration rate. He 

also said Jordan’s internet 

capacity was higher than is often 

realized, at 21 megabytes per 

second - matched only by Dubai 

and Saudi Arabia. “The capital 

required to start a company here 

is not high - about $30,000,” 

Queen Rania 

he said. But “it’s not feasible to 

only serve Jordan - we target 

the GCC because [customers 

there] have the money but 

lack the product.” Amman’s 

success is also due to a stronger 

technology infrastructure. Jeryes 

is the founder of Amman Tech 

Tuesdays, monthly tech meetups 

which now welcome about 

500 visitors per session. He 

modeled it on similar, popular 

events in America, where he’d 

been living before repatriating 

8th Media and Telecoms Convergence 

Conference 2011 getting strong support 

The Arab Advisors Group has 

announced getting strong 

support for the 8th Media 

and Telecoms Convergence 

Conference to be held at the 

Four Seasons Hotel - Amman 

on June 6 & 7 2011. Zain is the 

main sponsor of the conference. 

Qualcomm, Arabsat, Motorola, 

Umniah, Ericsson and Orange 

are among the companies who 

already confirmed sponsoring 

Arab Advisors 8th Media 

and Telecoms Convergence 

Conference 2011. Limited 

number of sponsorships remain. 

Conference exhibitors include 

– to date: Damamax, Mada 

Jordan and JWT. Arab Advisors’ 

8th Media and Telecoms 

Convergence Conference has 

deservedly become the region’s 

premiere conference tackling 

the convergence dynamics of 

the media and telecom industry. 

In 2010, more than 600 

delegates from 180 global and 

regional companies attended 

the conference. Delegates 

leveraged the conference online 

networking system to prepare 

for their meetings before, 

during and even after the 

conference ended. 

Karen Leigh 

King Abdullah 

to Jordan. “What I missed was 

the ecosystem - you have people 

to meet,” he said. “That wasn’t 

available here. We had a vibrant 

tech scene in Amman but it 

was cliquey, no culture of open 

knowledge or exchange.” 

He and fellow Amman techies 

have also launched Oasis 

500, a push to start 500 tech 

startups in the next five years, 

predominantly in the social 

media and mobile sectors. T 

As in the past seven 

conferences, Arab Advisors’ 

8th Annual Media and 

Telecommunications 

Convergence Conference 2011 

will have an impressive array 

of speakers and delegates 

from the top regional and 

global operators and vendors. 

HRH Pincess Sumaaya Bint Al 

Hassan inaugurated the event 

in 2010 and will also officially 

inaugurate the 2011 conference. 

Teletimes International is 

the media partner to the 

conference. T 

15Apr - 14May 2011 


47

Menatelecom subscriber numbers soar 

Menatelecom, an 

investment subsidiary 

of Kuwait Finance House - 

Bahrain and one of the most 

advanced Internet service 

providers in the region, has 

announced that its subscriber 

base has exceeded 60,000 

customers. 

Menatelecom’s WiMAX 16e 

network has recently witnessed 

a major network expansion to 

100,000 subscription capacity, 

enabling it to launch the most 

powerful Internet packages 

in the kingdom with a reliable 

service and speeds of up to 18 

Mb - wireless, nationwide. 

‘Our WiMAX 16e network has 

witnessed tremendous growth 

with continued upgrades and 

improvements to services 

since its launch in 2008,’ said 

Menatelecom vice-chairman 

and managing director and 

KFH-Bahrain executive 

manager Abdul Razak 

Lebanon goes 3G 

Vendors Ericsson and Huawei are chosen 

for 3G deployments in the country 

Lebanese mobile 

operators, Alfa 

and MTC Touch, are to 

upgrade their networks 

to 3G. 

Alfa, managed by 

Orascom Telecom 

Holding, has chosen 

Ericsson to upgrade its 

network to 3G/HSPA+ 

technology across the 

country. Tarek Saadi, 

president, Ericsson in 

North Middle East, said: 

“Mobile broadband has 

transformed societies 

around the globe and 

has proven to improve 

productivity as well 

Jawahery. 

‘This sustained progress is inline 

with our business strategy 

as education in effect 

increasing national 

wealth.” 

The Chinese vendor, 

Huawei Technologies, 

has signed an agreement 

with MTC Lebanon to 

deploy 3G technology 

for MTC Touch network, 

on behalf of the 

Lebanon’s ministry of 

telecommunications. 

Under the terms of the 

agreement, Huawei will 

integrate the end-toend 

network solution 

including the provision 

of RAN and packet 

switching, and provide 

professional turnkey 

services for the entire 

MTC Touch network. 

Setting the pace 

for its operations in 

Lebanon, last year in 

June, Huawei carried 

out the Middle East 

LTE road show in the 

country with live LTE 

and mobile broadband 

demonstrations in a 

dedicated articulated 

vehicle. The two week 

road show was held 

under the patronage 

of Charbel Nahhas, 

Lebanon’s minister of 

telecommunications. T 

to ensure that customers 

benefit from the highest 

quality standards, the fastest 

speeds and the lowest prices in 

the kingdom,’ he noted. 

‘Our vision has always 

been to improve the way 

people communicate and we 

are proud to see that has 

become a reality,’ he added. 

Menatelecom is also planning 

to introduce more products 

for business customers. With 

the largest and most advanced 

business portfolio in Bahrain, 

Menatelecom’s corporate clients 

will soon enjoy even greater 

choices and more products that 

aim to maximise the efficiency 

of their operations however big 

or small. 

Menatelecom caters to 

all forms of business 

requirements, from secure 

VPN links for banks, to remote 

surveillance systems, and full 

telecommunications solutions 

for some of the largest 

companies. T 

Interest solicited for 

GSM-1800 spectrum, 

to be used for future 4G 

Bahrain’s Telecommunications Regulatory 

Authority (TRA) has released an invitation for 

expressions of interest in 30MHz of mobile 

spectrum in the 1800MHz band to be available 

for temporary release for a period of six months, 

extendable for further periods of two months 

duration. The available spectrum includes the 

following band segments, which have been 

packaged into three 2x5MHz paired subbands 

(uplink, downlink): 1750MHz-1755MHz, 

1845MHz-1850MHz; 1755MHz-1760MHz, 

1850MHz-1855MHz; and 1780MHz-1785MHz, 

1875MHz-1880MHz. It is intended that this 

spectrum will be included in a future tender 

for full mobile licences, which together with 

additional spectrum (yet to be decided) should 

be capable of facilitating advanced, fourthgeneration 

mobile systems such as Long Term 

Evolution (LTE). Therefore the current planned 

release of unallocated spectrum will be on a 

temporary basis only. T 


15Apr - 14May 2011

Content distribution 

and IP agreement will enable increased 

Middle East connectivity 

New international IP and 

content distribution 

services will be enabled in 

Saudi Arabia and across 

the Middle East following 

the announcement of a 

strategic long-term agreement 

between Middle East operator 

Saudi Telecom and Level 3 

Communications. 

The agreement leverages 

the respective strengths of 

each company to provide 

significantly enhanced 

connectivity and breadth 

of services to customers 

connecting to the Middle East. 

Following the devastating 

9.0 magnitude 

earthquake which struck 

Japan, triggering the 23-foot 

Tsunami that damaged the 

terrestrial fixed and mobile 

networks, the International 

Telecommunications Union 

(ITU) in coordination with 

Thuraya have deployed vital 

satellite communication 

equipment to enable relief 

efforts. This includes the 

world’s smallest broadband 

solution, Thuraya IP and 

satellite handheld phones. 

Satellite communications are 

providing reliable and robust 

communications which are 

being used by local government 

organisations responsible for 

coordinating search and rescue 

efforts. 

“Thuraya has always played 

Both US and European CDN 

customers will have access to 

a new broadband market in 

the Middle East and content 

customers in the Middle 

East will have the ability 

to distribute their content 

across both STC’s and Level 3’s 

international networks. 

“With the largest 

international network in 

the Middle East and Africa, 

Saudi Telecom is the only 

Middle East operator that 

has international connectivity 

by way of both multiple 

submarine cable systems and 

a pivotal role in providing 

reliable communications during 

and after natural disasters 

to facilitate search and 

rescue operations and assist 

humanitarian efforts within 

our 140-country coverage area. 

Thuraya IP is easily deployable, 

rugged and backed by a robust 

satellite network ensuring that 

government organisations, 

NGOs and other consumers 

are able to perform their daily 

activities during such difficult 

times. We are proud to be able 

to assist the Japanese people 

following the earthquake 

through our relationship with 

the ITU and our solutions,” 

said Thuraya’s Vice President 

Corporate and Marketing 

Communications, Mr. Ebrahim 

K. Ebrahim. 

On a similar note, 

a terrestrial cable system 

via the recently launched 

Jeddah-Amman-Damascus- 

Istanbul (JADI) link,” said 

Saad Demyati, Saudi Telecom’s 

vice president of Wholesale 

Business Unit. 

“Our relationship with Level 

3 allows us to offer the 

reliable, high-quality global 

connectivity and end-toend 

solutions our customers 

increasingly demand, with the 

unique benefit of access to a 

fully redundant and scalable 

Tier 1 network.” 

In addition, Level 3 is 

Thuraya satcom solutions deployed 

for Japanese relief operations 

the Head of the ITU’s 

Division for Emergency 

Telecommunications, Mr. 

Cosmos Zavazava said, 

“The power of sustainable 

partnerships continues 

to manifest itself as the 

international community rallies 

behind countries affected by 

natural disasters. Our profound 

appreciation goes to all our 

partners, and Thuraya is a longstanding 

contributor to the ITU 

Framework for Cooperation in 

Emergencies across the globe. 

Recently, Thuraya generously 

contributed to our efforts to 

save lives in Samoa, Uganda, 

Malawi, Pakistan, Indonesia, 

and Japan in the immediate 

aftermath of devastating 

disasters.” 

Thuraya’s IP is the 

world’s smallest satellite 

providing STC with increased 

IP connectivity in the form 

of multiple 10 Gigabits per 

second (Gbps) ports at various 

points of presence (PoPs) 

across Europe. 

“Leveraging STC’s terrestrial 

connectivity in eight Middle 

Eastern countries, combined 

with the broad reach of 

Level 3’s international IP and 

CDN networks, we’re able 

to expand our offerings to 

new and existing customers 

around the world,” said James 

Heard, president of European 

Markets at Level 3. T 

Reham Barakat 

broadband solution which 

offers data services in a 

compact terminal that has 

a user-friendly interface 

easing communications for 

mission-critical projects 

rapidly. Similarly, Thuraya’s 

handhelds in addition to voice 

communication provides GPS 

navigation and data services 

as well as other significant 

functionalities which are 

essential for relief operations. 

Thuraya is a world leading 

mobile satellite operator that 

covers more than two thirds 

of the globe from Iceland to 

Australia. As such Thuraya 

provides blanket coverage 

over Japan including the 

surrounding waterways 

allowing high-quality satellite 

communication service at all 

times. T 

15Apr - 14May 2011 


49

Bahrain 

TRA 

denies 

with 

drawing 2 

Connect 

license 

There is no move to 

withdraw the license 

of Bahrain telecom 

company 2Connect, 

it has emerged. The 

Telecommunication 

Regulatory (TRA) said it 

had ‘no knowledge’ of this. 

‘We are not aware of such 

a move,’ said TRA deputy 

director general Rob 

Middlehurst. 

‘I have no knowledge 

of this,’ The TRA denial 

followed rumours 

circulating since the 

company (2Connect) was 

set to lose its license. 

‘This has led to immense 

problems for us,’ said 

company managing 

director Fahad Shirawi. 

‘We are getting calls from 

all over the world from 

clients, customers and 

others to get to know 

what’s going on.’This is 

completely baseless. There 

is no reason whatsoever 

for our license to be 

cancelled. We have met 

every requirement under 

the law and have done 

nothing inappropriate. 

‘This rumour is hurting us 

and needs to be denied. 

Iraq hopes to auction 

4th mobile license for $2bn 

Iraq hopes to auction 

a fourth mobile phone 

operator license for around 

$2 billion by the end of 

the year and will spend 

$500 million on upgrading 

battered infrastructure, the 

communications minister has 

said. 

Mohammed Allawi said Iraq 

aimed to boost fixed-line phone 

penetration and internet reach 

to 25 per cent within five years. 

‘What we have decided about 

the fourth license is to divide it 

into three main shares,’ Allawi 

said in his interview. 

‘Of the shares 40 per cent will 

go to the operator, 35 per cent 

to the public, and 25 per cent to 

the ministry.’ 

Iraq needs billions of dollars 

of foreign investment as it 

struggles to rebuild dilapidated 

infrastructure after decades of 

war and economic sanctions. 

The mobile phone market, 

which did not exist in Iraq 

under Saddam Hussein, has 

boomed since the 2003 US-led 

invasion that toppled him, 

although its fixed-line network 

remains badly damaged. 

Iraq held an auction in 2007 

in which Kuwait’s Zain, 

AsiaCell and Korek, which 

is based in the northern 

Kurdish region, bought 15-year 

licenses for $1.25 billion each. 

Allawi said he expected the 

fourth mobile phone license 

to go for $2 billion at an 

auction. The license would be 

approved and issued by Iraq’s 

Communications and Media 

Commission. 

Mohammed Allawi 

. The minister said while 

network jamming by security 

forces was partly to blame 

for patchy mobile coverage, 

the operators’ infrastructure 

had been unable to cope with 

growing demand. 

Allawi said completing 

an extensive fibre optic 

infrastructure network to 

connect Iraq to the rest of the 

world would be one of his main 

aims for this year. 

Zain Iraq expands into Kurdistan 

Operator’s move 

is part of a strategy to cover all of Iraq 

Zain Iraq, part of Zain Group, 

has launched its services in 

the Kurdistan. This expansion 

is the first phase of Zain Iraq’s 

plan to cover all areas in the 

northern provinces of Iraq. 

Emad Makiya, CEO of Zain 

Iraq, said that the coverage 

of Kurdistan will not only 

be welcomed by the local 

population, but it will also play 

a key role in spurring business 

and accelerate the pace of 

construction and reconstruction 


In the second phase, the 

operator plans to extend its 

services to remote villages and 

roads in northern Iraq, leading 

to complete coverage of the 

country. 

Zain Iraq offers 

a flat rate of 

1.25 Iraqi dinars 

per second to 

all networks 

within Iraq, and 

also provides 

‘Business Plus’ 

service targeted at 

enterprises. 

Zain Iraq has become the 

third operator to launch 

services in Iraq’s Kurdish-run 

northern region after operators 

AsiaCell and Korek. 

Makiya saying that the Zain 

Group is to continue to invest 

in Iraq and expects revenue 

for 2011 to increase by at least 

Emad Makiya, CEO of Zain 

15-20%. He was also quoted 

saying that the key focus 

apart from the Kurdish region 

expansion, will be to commence 

3G services in the country. Zain 

Iraq had a subscriber base of 

12 million customers at the end 

of 2010. T 


15Apr - 14May 2011

Barbara Ghini 

New Era, New Brand: 

CommScope unveils new identity 

CommScope has grown in 

size and expanded into new 

markets over the past decade 

to become the global leader in 

infrastructure solutions. Most 

recently, CommScope joined 

the Carlyle Group, becoming 

a private company again. As 

part of this exciting new era for 

CommScope, a new corporate 

identity is being launched 

that is representative of the 

company today and its role as 

a trusted resource and partner 

to network providers around 

the world. 

The brand makeover is the 

first for CommScope since 

the mid 1990s and follows 

the acquisitions of Avaya 

Connectivity Solutions in 

2003, and Andrew Corporation 

in 2007. The new corporate 

identity infuses the brand 

with a more contemporary 

look and feel, while capturing 

the movement and energy of 

a dynamic, evolving global 

company. It supports a more 

structured hierarchy of product 

and solution brands serving 

the telecom carrier, cable 

television, business enterprise, 

and government markets. 

The new CommScope brand 

identity includes: 

A new logo design featuring 

stylistic logotype in all capital 

letters with an embedded 

and redesigned dimensional 

A.T. Kearney says network operators must overhaul pricing structures, 

infrastructure to maintain services 

According to a study by global 

management consulting 

firm A.T. Kearney, European 

network operators will need to 

budget an additional $11.17bn 

annually to maintain current 

service levels, and manage the 

data explosion. The company 

says Middle Eastern operators 

may face the same issue. The 

current growth of internet traffic 

delivered via fixed networks is 

growing at 35% per annum and 

more than 100% via mobile 

networks. Video content on both 

mobile and fixed-line services is 

having a serious effect on internet 

usage as more and more internet 

connected mobile devices 

and high-bandwidth services are 

released. 

According to A.T. Kearney, the 

internet is under threat of becoming 

a victim of its own success 

as video traffic is threatening 

to swamp network capacity 

and cause congestion for users 

without generating revenue for 

operators. 

A.T. Kearney has forecast that 

if networks address the need to 

upgrade before 2014, but do not 

revise their price structures or 

increase revenues, their returns 

on capital will fall by 3 percentage 

points to around 9% and 

potentially as low as 7%. 

“The technical robustness of the 

internet is closely tied to the 

sustainability of the underlying 

commercial model and therefore 

both are vital to support the 

growth of current and future 

economic activity. Operators and 

regulators in the region need 

to think now how to tackle the 

problem of ever increasing dataflow 

via the internet,” said Dr 

corporate icon 

A change in corporate color to 

cyan blue 

The formalization of At 

Home, At Work, and On 

the Go terms to represent 

the three primary market 

segments—broadband (cable 

TV), enterprise and wireless— 

served by CommScope today 

and new icons to symbolize 

each. The On the Go icon 

integrates the well known 

“Andrew flash” that stood as 

Andrew Corporation’s logo for 

decades and is seen in wireless 

networks around the world. 

CommScope has a rich and 

cherished history, with 

roots that trace back to 

Growth of internet traffic threatens internet 

Martin Fabel, partner and senior 

media expert at A.T. Kearney 

Middle East. 

A.T. Kearney says regional industry 

stakeholders must pay attention 

to the infrastructural needs 

of the internet to maintain the 

success of services in the Middle 

East. 

The company says that the 

increased costs of handling 

rapidly growing traffic will not 

be matched by an increase in 

revenues for network operators. 

A.T. Kearney also revealed 

that current pricing models of 

the services do not promote efficient 

use of existing capacity in 

bandwidth availability. “Without 

significant improvements in pricing 

and investment incentives, 

internet services could be seriously 

jeopardised. This will have 

an immense impact on sectors 

the formation of the cable 

television infrastructure, the 

first wireless networks, and 

networking of the world’s first 

data centers and intelligent 

buildings. Today, corporate 

LANs, cell phone networks, 

the Internet, on demand 

cable TV, and other advanced 

networking applications all 

depend on technology we 

have developed. Now our 

customers will experience 

our brand consistently across 

continents—the same integrity, 

honesty, and reliability we have 

displayed for years, only now 

with a fresh burst of energy, 

color, and story unique to 

CommScope. T 

Georgina Enzer 

that want to offer new services 

but are reliant on efficient networks,” 

added Fabel. 

A.T. Kearney suggests that telecom 

providers need to introduce 

a differentiated approach to 

bandwidth, services and pricing 

that addresses both current and 

future needs for business, entertainment 

and communication. 

15Apr - 14May 2011 


51

Qtel Group shakes hands with Skype 

Operator will offer Skype services on its wi-tribe service in Jordan, Philippines 

The Qtel Group has signed a 

commercial agreement with 

Skype to promote the company 

and its related products over 

Qtel’s mobile broadband 

subsidiary wi-tribe in Jordan 

and the Philippines. 

Under the agreement wi-tribe, a 

provider of wireless broadband 

internet, will enable customers 

to download Skype software. 

“The Qtel Group’s strategy for 

innovation is driven by the 

needs of our customers, and 

enabled by partnerships with 

like-minded companies. We 

recognise the changes taking 

place in the market and the 

increasing customer demand 

for rich communications 

solutions, and so have decided 

to partner with Skype - one of 

the pioneers in the industry. 

This is a first-of-its-kind in 

our Middle East region and we 

look forward to working closely 

with Skype to deliver the best 

possible customer experience,” 

said Dr Nasser Marafih, Group 

CEO, Qtel. 

Skype had 145 million average 

monthly connected users as of 

December 31st 2010, according 

to according to TeleGeography in 

January 2011. The company says 

that Skype-to-Skype calling 

minutes in 2010 were equivalent 

to approximately 20% of total 

global international PSTN and 

Skype-to-Skype calling minutes. 

With the signing of the 

agreement, more users in the 

Middle-Eastern and Asian 

regions will enjoy accessibility 

to Skype features such as free 

Skype-to-Skype calls, instant 

messaging, low cost calls to 

landlines and mobiles as well as 

Group Video Calling. 

“We’re very excited to be 

working with the Qtel Group 

and wi-tribe,” said Russ Shaw, 

vice president and general 

manager for Mobile, Skype. 

“wi-tribe is a high performance 

wireless internet experience 

with a customer-centric 

approach, much like Skype. We 

believe that Skype and serviceproviders 

can complement each 

other to bring greater value 

for consumers - and have seen 

successful examples of this 

around the world. We look 

forward to working closely 

with the Qtel Group to progress 

the wi-tribe partnership and 

support the growth of the 

internet ecosystem within the 

Middle-Eastern and Asian 

regions.”Skype and wi-tribe 

will be distributing Skype credit 

vouchers for customers in the 

Philippines and in Jordan as a 

partnership launch offer. The 

free vouchers are designed to 

enable customers to place free 

calls to landlines and mobiles 

over Skype using the wi-tribe 

mobile broadband network. T 

Qtel in strategic tieup with iHorizons 

Qatar Telecom (Qtel) 

has signed a strategic 

alliance deal with iHorizons, 

a key provider of business 

solutions and IT services in 

the region, to develop and 

market a number of advanced 

technology solutions and 

business services. 

Recognising the ongoing 

development of Qatar’s 

economy, the two companies 

will cooperate on world-class 

business solutions aimed 

at supporting companies in 

specific industries and growth 

sectors. 

The alliance will see the two 

companies align their product 

development roadmaps and 

technology architectures in 

order to provide a faster timeto-market 

for new solutions, 

as well as bespoke service for 

key customers. 

Khalid Abdulla Al Mansouri, 

executive director, Business 

Solutions, Qtel, and Mohamad 

Takriti, CEO of iHorizons 

signed the agreement. 

It is one of the first 

agreements of its kind 

between two leading Qatari 

companies, a major regional 

operator and a leading provider 

of business solutions and IT 

services, said a Qtel statement. 

Khalid Abdulla Al Mansouri, 

executive director, Business 

Solutions, said: “Qtel is 

placing strong emphasis on 

ensuring that our customers 

receive the highest quality of 

business services and support.” 

Mohamad Takriti, CEO of 

iHorizons said: ‘The world is 

witnessing rapid convergence 

between telecom and IT 

services, and businesses and 

consumers expect leading 

edge solutions and flawless 

customer service. Therefore, 

iHorizons is teaming up with 

Qtel to develop, market, 

and operate such converged 

solutions.’For over 15 years, 

iHorizons has been providing 

advanced technology solutions 

in the region. Many large 

enterprises are outsourcing 

their IT operations to iHorizons 

in the areas of software 

development, managed 

operations, technical support 

and advanced technology 

consulting. Founded in 1996, 

iHorizons has offices in Doha, 

Dubai, Amman and Riyadh, as 

well as two labs for research 

and development. T 


15Apr - 14May 2011

Jaffer Brothers and Acision 

partner to market and distribute mobile data solutions 

in Afghanistan 

Jaffer Brothers Pvt. Limited 

(JBL), a leading provider 

of integrated IT solutions, 

and Acision, a world leader 

in mobile data, have recently 

announced a partnership 

which enables JBL to market 

and distribute Acision’s 

mobile messaging and data 

solutions in Afghanistan. The 

partnership, which forms part 

of Acision’s Channel Partner 

Programme, is an extension 

of an existing working 

relationship between Acision 

and JBL in Pakistan, and will 

allow both companies to tap 

into new market opportunities 

within the Middle East. 

The agreement, which was 

signed in a contract signing 

ceremony in March 2011 

between Acision Pakistan 

Country Director, Mr. Salman 

Nayyar, and Director of 

Operations at JBL, Mr. Zia 

ul Haque, will enable JBL to 

extend its existing portfolio 

of IT solutions and offer more 

comprehensive solutions to 

operators in the region. By 

working with JBL, Acision will 

gain increased insight into the 

Afghan market by leveraging 

JBL’s existing relationships 

with carriers while delivering 

its innovative solutions. 

“Afghanistan is slated to be 

one of the fastest growing 

mobile markets in the Middle 

East. It is expected to 

continue its growth, reaching 

24.5 million mobile subscriber 

connections by 2014, and 

making it one of the most 

exciting markets in the region,” 

said Salman Nayyer, Country 

Director, Acision Pakistan. “As 

a proven partner in Pakistan, 

we believe that JBL will play 

a key role in helping us meet 

operators’ strategic demands in 

Afghanistan.” 

“Based on our in-country 

Aptec signed as sole 

Symantec distie for Pakistan 

Aptec hosts reseller partners at 

Pakistan roadshow to launch Symantec solutions 

Aptec Holdings has recently completed 

a two days channel event in 

Pakistan, to launch its activities as the 

newly signed sole distributor for Symantec 


The distributor hosted over 60 reseller 

partners at the events in Karachi and Lahore, 

which were intended to introduce 

Symantec’s latest solutions, and train 

resellers in the technology. 

The event included sessions on endpoint 

security, and Symantec’s offerings for the 

data centre. 

Zia ul Haque 

expertise, we strongly believe 

that mobile data will be 

a key differentiator in the 

increasingly competitive 

Afghan mobile landscape,” 

said Zia ul Haque, Director 

of Operations, JBL. “Acision 

and JBL both share the same 

vision and passion to meet 

operator requirements, and 

we are pleased to extend our 

According to Aptec, the IT market in 

Pakistan is expected to grow 35% yearon-year 

as of 2010. 

Essam Baghdady, VP of Aptec Group 

said: “While the IT market showed contracting 

trends worldwide by 3% and the 

European market was even hit harder, 

the Middle East and Africa on the other 

hand saw a 5% growth in spite of the 

worldwide recession. On a positive note 

the IT spending according to researchers 

and analysts hit the bottom and now is 

on the recovery road. Pakistan showed 

existing relationship from 

Pakistan. By leveraging 

our strong relationships 

with leading operators, we 

will be able to market and 

distribute Acision’s mobile 

data solutions portfolio 

successfully.” Acision is the 

world leader in mobile data 

and a pioneer of mobile 

messaging globally. Its 

product portfolio includes 

mobile data services, mobile 

data control and mobile 

data charging solutions, 

supporting customers 

worldwide to drive new 

revenues with innovative new 

services, while controlling 

optimizing and monetizing 

data traffic. With over 28 

years of experience, JBL is a 

leading provider of integrated 

IT solutions including servers, 

data centers, ERP and network 

and security solutions in 

Pakistan and the Middle East. T 

Essam Baghdady 

promising indications and the potential 

growth outlook with the ICT sector is 

estimated at $12.8 billion. T 

15Apr - 14May 2011 


53

PTCL and ADG LDI sign 

WLL Business Promotion Agreement 

Techaccess Sales Corner 2011 

Techaccess held its annual 

3-day event in the month 

March in the Gun and Country 

Club, Islamabad, to appreciate 

and cheer on the efforts of its 

sales and technical teams. Each 

day comprised of interactive 

presentations by the sales 

representatives on solutions 

they specialized in, and closed 

on a fascinating and colorful 

recreational activity and a formal 

dinner at exotic venues. 

The company COO, Mr. Amin 

Ul Hafeez, opened the first day 

with a heart-felt presentation on 

how it all started by a handful 

of people with a vision and the 

courage to follow a dream. The 

talk went on about the main 

ingredients, hard work, positive 

attitude and the commitment 

to not just the cause but also to 

each other that lead to a strong 

foundation of a company that 

has become a family to about 

200 of its employees countrywide. 

With a clip from the movie 

“Men of Honor,” a tear in the 

eye and a sense of belonging 

in each present member of the 

Techaccess family, the event 

commenced in the picturesque 

country club. In all, Techaccess 

Techaccess awarded VMware’s Enterprise level partnership 

through its solution provider program 

Techaccess has been awarded 

VMware’s Enterprise level 

partnership through its solution 

provider program, thus positioning 

Techaccess as one of the top 

leading System Integrator and 

VMware Partners in Pakistan 

paving the way for easy cloud 

computing adoption. It has been 

PTCL has signed an agreement 

with ADG LDI (Pvt.) 

Ltd to promote its Wireless 

Local Loop services across Pakistan. 

Mr. Hamid Farooq (SEVP 

Business Development), PTCL 

and Mr. Farooq Dar (CEO) ADG 

LDI (Pvt.) Ltd signed the agreement 

in a ceremony held at the 

PTCL headquarters. ADG LDI 

a company of the Dollar East 

Group is a premium provider of 

telecom services and solutions 

with expertise in diverse areas 

and is operating a network of 

voice and data services with 

presence in major cities of 

Pakistan. 

PTCL is the largest integrated 

telecommunication services provider 

in Pakistan and has been 

offering voice and data wholesale 

WLL services to prospective 

Virtual Network Operators 

(VNO). These VNOs use the 

PTCL network infrastructure for 

end to end service provisioning 

and use their own retail brand 

and sales & distribution channels 

to market these services 

to their target customer. The 

resellers can customize their 

product-line to cater to very 

distinct segments of the market. 

Speaking on the occasion Mr. 

Hamid Farooq, SEVP Business 

Development PTCL said, 

“Wholesale partnerships like 

these make a difference to our 

business. We are pleased to 

sign this agreement with ADG 

LDI which will strengthen our 

wholesale product portfolio. 

PTCL, being a leader in the 

achieved after developing skilled 

and qualified resources through 

investment in training and dedication 

to excellence in delivering 

VMware virtualization solutions. 

The pull of virtualization is 

strong-the economics are too 

attractive to resist. And for 

most organizations, there’s no 

industry is 

committed to 

offer innovative 

business 

opportunities 

for our growth 

and success 

via our 

partners. We 

believe ADG 

will be able 

to capitalize 

on this opportunity to its fullest 

potential and will provide its 

customers value through dedicated 

services.” Mr. Farooq Dar, 

CEO ADG LDI (Pvt.) Ltd said, 

“Keeping in mind the needs & 

requirements of end users, ADG 

LDI (Pvt.) Ltd has joined hands 

with PTCL as a Partner in WLL 

Operations. I am sure, with the 

Farah Hussain 

Hamid Farooq, SEVP Business Development, 

PTCL and Farooq Dar, CEO, ADG LDI Pvt. Ltd 

signing an agreement for Wirless Local Loop 

Business Promotion at PTCL Headquarters 

grace of Allah, both companies 

can jointly make Wireless Local 

Loop business a success story in 

terms of penetration & customer 

retention. Penetration on the 

ADG side & retention through 

Quality of Service provided on 

the established WLL Network 

& Infrastructure provided by 

PTCL. T 

Hassan Shabbir 

Sales Corner 2011 was a huge 

success in connecting and realigning 

the vision of employees 

at every echelon. T 

reason to fight against this pull. 

Well-managed virtualization 

technologies can make their 

world better VMware is uniquely 

positioned to help consolidate 

datacenter, thus reducing costs 

and improving agility. VMware 

delivers virtualization and cloud 

infrastructure solutions that enable 

IT organizations to energize 

businesses of all sizes. With the 

industry leading virtualization 

platform - VMware vSphere - 

customers rely on VMware to 

reduce capital and operating 

expenses, improve agility, ensure 

business continuity, strengthen 

security and go green. T 


15Apr - 14May 2011

Dr. Karim Taga 

Capturing value in the mHealth oasis 

An opportunity for mobile network operators 

mHealth has been hailed 

as the next major 

development for mobile 

networks operators (MNOs), 

but could it be just wishful 

thinking from a sector 

desperately seeking additional 

revenues to offset margin 

erosion? While few commercial 

offers currently exist, mHealth 

is firmly on the agenda for 

many MNOs. In this viewpoint, 

Arthur D. Little assesses the 

key success factors that lay 

the foundations for operators 

to successfully navigate the 

mHealth minefield. 

With the right approach, 

mHealth can outperform even 

the highest of expectations. 

Advances in mobile technology 

have the potential to transform 

the way health care is 

delivered. mHealth, or mobile 

health, is the application of 

mobile technologies in health 

care systems that enables the 

transformation from physiciancentric 

to patient-centric 

health care delivery. mHealth 

enables critical decision 

support to be lever-aged at 

the point-of-care, ensuring the 

accuracy of clinical information 

and leading to higher quality 

patient outcomes while 

reducing medical errors, which 

are estimated to cost the U.S. 

$19.5 billion annually. 

For example, with an additional 

mHealth subscription through 

his mobile operator, a patient 

with hypertension could be 

provided with a blood pressure 

monitor that is wirelessly 

connected to his mobile phone 

and sends real-time updates 

to his doctor over the mobile 

network. 

Current health care delivery 

systems are becoming 

increasingly un-sustainable in 

both developed and emerging 

markets. In developed markets, 

an aging population and the 

evolving nature of medical 

conditions have shifted 

the focus to the long-term 

management of chronic 

conditions for a greater number 

of patients. As a result, 

spending on health care is 

increasing to unsustainable 

levels. In contrast, emerging 

markets are facing a significant 

shortage of trained medical 

staff, which has resulted in 

insufficient access to basic 

medical care. The rapid 

adoption of mobile technology 

can provide a fresh impetus 

for the health care industry to 

address such problems through 

the remote delivery of health 

care services, such as health 

education and awareness, 

remote data collection, remote 

monito-ring and epidemic 

tracking. mHealth also promises 

a significant boost in MNO 

revenues, resulting in a classic 

“Win-Win” situation. 

Given the prospects for 

mHealth, it is not surprising 

that analysts are estimating 

mHealth’s potential value to 

be up to 10 billion dollars 

within the next five years. 

However, while expanding into 

mHealth can create value and 

new growth opportunities for 

MNOs, there are significant 

challenges. Operators 

have been cautious about 

developing mHealth solutions 

due to the nascent state of 

the mHealth ecosystem and its 

unproven business models. In 

this viewpoint, Arthur D. Little 

assesses the key success factors 

for operators to successfully 

navigate the mHealth 

minefield. These include 

identifying the most suitable 

mHealth solutions, the most 

appropriate business model, 

and the key responsibilities for 

mobile operators. 

There is no one-size-fitsall 

mHealth solution for all 

markets 

The demand for, and the nature 

of, mHealth solutions depend 

on the degree of development 

and specific characteristics of 

individual markets. Emerging 

markets are characterized by a 

low degree of development of 

the health care infrastructure 

and regulatory environment, 

low ability to pay, and rapid 

growth in mobile penetration. 

Maximum value from mHealth 

in these markets intuitively 

comes from keeping offers 

simple. In such environments, 

mHealth can be an enabler for 

the provision of fundamental 

health care access to the 

masses. 

Conversely, developed markets 

are typically characterized 

by an established health 

care infrastructure, an aging 

population and high levels 

of smartphone penetration. 

However, developed markets 

are also likely to have a 

highly regulated health care 

environment that imposes 

controls on the provision 

of health care, the players 

who can participate and 

the accessibility of medical 

records. In this environment, 

mHealth should be treated 

as a complementary and 

sophisticated enhancement to 

traditional health care services, 

which leverages existing 

technologies. 

Utilize internal capabilities and 

leverage partnerships to create 

maximum value 

As existing ecosystems 

are still nascent, mHealth 

15Apr - 14May 2011 


55

usiness models are largely 

unproven and there is no clear 

benchmark model to adopt. 

However, it is clear, that 

partnerships will be necessary 

as no single player will have 

all the essential capabilities 

required to deliver such 

solutions. Hence, the resulting 

business model and selection 

of partners will depend on the 

MNO’s technological, as well as 

its commercial, regulatory and 

organizational capabilities. 

Fundamental technological 

capabilities necessary to 

launch mHealth services 

include a scalable network 

architecture to support M2M 

business, an agile service layer 

architecture, an enterprisebased 

OSS/BSS architecture 

and security systems. Key 

commercial capabilities include 

the experience of a reliable 

health care service provider, 

strong consumer brand, large 

customer base and broad retail 

distribution channels. An 

assessment of these factors has 

lead to five potential business 

models (see Figure 1). 

The mHealth opportunity for 

an MNO is significant, but the 

value created will have to be 

shared among the partners 

delivering the mHealth service. 

Our expert analysis shows 

that operators which play 

only the connectivity role 

can access up to 20 percent 

of the mHealth market 

value, but there is potential 

to retain approximately 45 

percent of the market value 

when delivering end-to-end 

solutions. Hence, in order to 

limit the value that it must 

share with partners, the MNO 

should focus on maximizing 

its contribution by making the 

most of its internal capabilities. 

Keep it simple for emerging 

markets mHealth solutions 

bring basic health care to the 

masses 

In emerging markets, mHealth 

solutions, such as the delivery 

of medical information by SMS 

or MMS, medicine reminders, 

remote data collection, and 

medical help-lines, can help 

improve patients’ access to 

basic medical care. 

The delivery of health 

information by SMS can be 

used to raise awareness and to 

educate the population. The 

mHealth Company (MHC), 

based in Saudi Arabia, is 

working with several MNOs 

in the region to provide 

comprehensive health 

education by SMS and MMS. 

One such partner is Saudi 

Telecom Company, which 

recorded a peak of 430,000 

monthly subscriptions with 

a 70 percent retention rate. 

Overall, MHC has achieved 

a total subscriber base of 2 

million since its launch in 2009. 

Another relatively basic 

mHealth service is a helpline 

that connects mobile 

phone callers to a health 

care call center staffed by 

trained specialists. While this 

service keeps the technology 

requirements low for the 

patient, it requires more health 

care resources to be located at 

the call center. 

Additionally, health care 

providers can use mHealth 

services to provide remote 

diagnosis support to field 

staff and also to suggest 

treatments. Health care experts 

located in a central facility can 

use the service to remotely 

support in-field health care 

workers with PDAs or a laptop 

computer equipped with a 

mobile broadband or video 

conferencing. 

In emerging markets, MNOs 

must drive mHealth, often in 

cooperation with NGOs 

In emerging markets and 

especially in rural communities, 

MNOs are most likely to take 

on a “lead partner” business 

model to offer basic services. 

As investment costs are likely 

to be higher and ARPU 

lower, the focus must be on 

capturing a large subscriber 

base. The role of NGOs and 

government agencies will be 

critical in capturing a broad 

subscriber base as they have 

the expertise and reach essential 

to penetrate this market 

and raise awareness of the 

service. 

Roshan, Afghanistan’s 

largest MNO, has adopted 

this approach by partnering 

with the Aga Khan Fund for 

Economic Development. With 

its NGO partner, it has been 


15Apr - 14May 2011

unning a telemedicine program 

with mHealth initiatives, such 

as equipping remote health 

centers with basic medical kits 

and connected smartphones, 

training of midwives via SMS 

and running a small fleet 

of mobile-equipped, multifunctional 

bikes with screens 

to display health information 

videos. 

In developed markets, 

operators must focus on 

solutions that fit within the 

current health care industry 

structure. 

Smartphones and Apps drive 

mHealth 

In developed countries, the 

rapid adoption of smartphones 

and tablet devices, such as the 

iPad, by health care providers 

has triggered a significant 

growth in the use of mHealth 

Apps. It is estimated that the 

market for such Apps will 

reach $1.7 billion by the end of 

2014. Furthermore, over 500 

million people, about onethird 

of smartphone users, are 

expected to use health care 

mobile applications on their 

smartphones by 2015 (see 

Figure 2). 

mHealth could provide a mobile 

operator with the opportunity 

to not only increase ARPU, but 

also acquire new subscribers 

and control churn. There 

are over 17,000 mHealth 

applications currently in major 

App stores, of which 74 percent 

are based on a paid business 

model. 

The greatest health care issue 

facing developed countries 

today is the high cost of 

treating chronic diseases. 

According to the Center 

for Disease Control and 

Prevention, the cost of treating 

chronic disease in the United 

States constitutes 83 percent 

of total Medicaid and 96 

percent of the total Medicare 

expenditure. In Denmark, 

chronic diseases account for 

70-80 percent of its health 

care expenditure. In the United 

Arab Emirates, 20 percent 

of the adult population has 

diabetes, which consumes 40 

percent of the country’s health 

care expenditure. 

Given the high and increasing 

smartphone penetration in 

developed markets, health 

industry players are entering 

the mHealth market as a way 

to drastically reduce costs 

while focusing on prevention 

and management, rather than 

cure. Within the next 5 years, 

mHealth is expected to target 

220 million diabetes patients 

and around 400 million obesity 

cases globally, resulting in 

savings of US$ 20 billion per 

year for health care providers, 

according to West Wireless 

Health Institute. 

Remote monitoring and 

wellness enhancement are key 

revenue drivers 

One of the latest market 

offerings tailored to manage 

chronic diseases is a remote 

monitoring service. The service 

consists of a medical device 

that can monitor vital signs 

associated with diabetes or 

hypertension, a mobile device 

for transmission, a centralized 

platform for diagnosis and 

analysis, health care providers 

for interpreting the analysis 

and additional support and a 

communications gateway for 

informing the patient of any 

specific actions that must be 

taken. This patient-centric 

service, typically offered at 

a premium, enables patients 

to take control of their own 

medical conditions. 

The first patient-centric and 

commercially available remote 

monitoring service, “healthe”, 

was launched by Orange 

Austria in June 2010. Users 

pay the equivalent of $14 

per month for access to the 

monitoring service and access 

to up to 5 caregivers, and an 

additional $2.8 per month for 

the notification package. 

Other revenue-enhancing 

services are focused on fitness 

and wellness enhancement. 

NTT DoCoMo, a Japanese 

MNO, launched “i Bodymo”, 

which monitors physical 

activity and food intake and 

provides diet and health tips 

for a monthly fee of $1.75. 

Since its launch in May 2010, 

the service has attracted 1 

million subscribers. 

In addition to complex 

solutions, basic mHealth 

services are still very attractive 

for MNOs in developed 

markets, due in part to their 

ease of implementation and 

their ability to reduce operating 

costs for the health care 

provider. In February 2011, 

Mobily, a Saudi Arabian MNO, 

partnered with the Al Habib 

Medical Group to deliver the 

“Mobile Baby” App, which 

simply enables ultrasound 

images and video to be sent to 

subscribers’ mobile phones. 

Leverage the existing health 

care ecosystem 

As market conditions in 

developed countries create 

high entry barriers for 

operators wishing to develop 

their own offerings, MNOs 

should leverage the existing 

ecosystem. When launching 

mHealth services, a key success 

factor will be the mobile 

operator’s ability to develop 

well-integrated partnerships 

to ensure interoperability and 

jointly navigate regulatory 

issues. 

For example, in order to 

provide the “healthe” service, 

Orange Austria relies upon a 

consortium of highly integrated 

partners. Alcatel-Lucent brings 

technical expertise to the 

medical platform, as well as the 

mobile applications; the device 

manufacturers, Nokia and 

Lifescan, have enabled their 

respective mobile handsets and 

medical devices for “healthe”. 

ArbeiterSamariterbund 

provides the medical expertise 

and runs the dedicated hotline. 

Last, but not least, Orange 

provides the marketing and 

distribution of the service, 

as well as the encrypted 

connectivity and billing. All 

devices and peripherals are 

sold through its network of 94 

Orange shops across Austria. 

Device manufacturers play 

an active role by providing 

handsets, smartphones, and 

integrated medical devices 

that can function with existing 

mobile operating systems. A 

medical device manufacturer in 

Singapore, EPI Health Pte, has 

been advancing interoperability 

15Apr - 14May 2011 


57

with the EPI Mini, a medical 

Bluetooth device that works 

with all major smartphones, 

transforming them into EKG 

devices. 

Guidelines to avoid pitfalls and 

maximize opportunities 

Clearly, mHealth is unlike 

any other mobile service and 

requires a completely new 

market entry strategy. The 

MNO must assess its own 

capabilities, decide what role 

it will play and how it will 

contribute to the service, 

align the internal capabilities 

required for the selected 

business model, and then 

partner with other players 

to acquire key capabilities to 

effectively and efficiently bring 

patients into the ecosystem. 

However, by sticking to a 

few simple guidelines, MNOs 

can avoid major obstacles 

and increase their chances of 

success: 

Mobile operators in emerging 

markets should: 

• Focus on simple offersnn – 

SMS-based solutions are 

very attractive 

• Take the lead role in 

developing the ecosystemnn 

– no one else will do it for 

you 

• Cooperate with NGOs and 

government agenciesnn – 

they have local expertise 

and contacts 

However, they should not: 

• Pursue complex offeringsnn 

– smartphone penetration 

and ability to pay are low 

• Expect to leverage an 

existing ecosystemnn – 

there is none 

• Do it alone nn– NGOs and 

government agencies want 

to help 

Mobile operators in developed 

markets should: 

• Leverage the high 

smartphone penetration 

to offer sophis-nnticated 

services – remote 

monitoring is a key ARPU 

driver 

• Leverage an existing 

ecosystemnn – do not 

reinvent the wheel 

• Develop tightly integrated 

partnershipsnn – to obtain 

key capabilities and ensure 

interoperability 

• Contribute as much 

Alcatel-Lucent releases 

new communications server 

OmniPCX office Rich Communication Edition (RCE) 

Release 8 to hit the Middle East 

Alcatel-Lucent has announced 

the release of the 

OmniPCX Office Rich Communication 

Edition (RCE) Release 

8, in the Middle East. 

The communication server provides 

a platform for the next 

generation of multimedia communications 

for SMBs and is 

powered by a more powerful 

CPU, designed to support features 

and functions without 

requiring a hard disk. 

The OmniPCX Office RCE offers 

voice over IP in its core and a 

SIP-ready feature set. 

The PCX provides real-time 

user contact information that 

shows availability and status 

and offers support for multichannel 

communication encompassing 

voice, messaging 

and conferencing. 

OmniPCX Office Rich Communication 

Edition also supports 

SIP endpoints including the 

upcoming Alcatel-Lucent My 

IC smart desk phone, designed 

to enhance the integration between 

the PC, desk phone and 

mobile devices. 

The Rich Communication Edition 

also allows for instant 

conferencing and forward or 

transfer of calls from a desktop 

phone to a wireless LAN phone 

or mobile device. 

The server is also designed to 

enable users to share and work 

on documents from any device. 

“The OmniPCX Office Rich 

Communication Edition gives 

as possible to the 

partnershipnn – to 

maximize retained value 

They should not: 

• Focus on overly complex 

offerings that require 

structural nnchanges to the 

industry 

• Develop a new ecosystemnn 

– the barriers to entry are 

high 

• Forget to consider basic 

servicesnn – they are simple 

to implement, effective and 

low cost 

If these guidelines are taken 

into account, then we believe 

mHealth will surpass even 

the most optimistic industry 

predictions within the next five 

years and add significant value 

to the mobile industry. T 

SMBs big-business communication 

tools, such as conferencing, 

collaboration and customer 

service applications, which 

improve engagement and productivity 

at a price they can 

afford,” said Xavier Martin, VP 

Product Marketing, Enterprise 

Communication Solutions at 

Alcatel-Lucent. “Businesses 

benefit from the lower cost of 

delivering targeted customer 

greetings and call center capabilities 

such as routing and 

reporting, while end-users benefit 

from the rich communication 

features that offer support 

for multi-channel communications 

encompassing voice, messaging 

and conferencing.” 

The new RCE Edition is available 

in four different configurations, 

designed for different office 

sizes up to 200 people. T 


15Apr - 14May 2011

PAKSAT 

set to launch new satellite 

A 

hallmark of Pak-China 

joint venture, Pakistan 

telecommunication satellite 

Paksat 1R will be launched on 

August 14, the Independence 

Day of Pakistan, which also 

happens to be the date for the 

50th anniversary of SUPARCO. 

Paksat-1R is being developed in 

China to replace the currently inorbit 

leased satellite Paksat-1. 

The timely development 

and launch of this satellite 

is important as Paksat-1 is 

reaching the end of its service 

life next year. “The development 

of Paksat-1R satellite is 

progressing according to the 

schedule and the satellite will 

be launched as per the plan,” 

an official of the Planning 

Commission said. 

“The government of Pakistan 

realises the significance of this 

project of national importance 

and will, therefore, meet its 

financial obligations and will 

continue to provide funds to the 

project, despite several financial 

constraints it faces.” 

The Paksat 1R will replace the 

current telecommunication 

satellite developed by Hughes 

Systems, which already has 

shown signal eclipse of 88 days 

in a year. The International 

Telecommunication Union (ITU) 

allocates the satellite place 

in geostationary orbit on a 

first-come-first-serve basis. But 

after allotment of a position, a 

deadline is needed for a party 

to launch its satellite in a given 

time and in the case of failure, 

the allotment is handed over 

to other nations or parties who 

were in queue. 

In the 1980s, Pakistan booked 

eight slots in the orbit. 

In mid-90s, Pakistan 

Telecommunication Authority 

(PTA) signed an agreement 

with Alcatel for a satellite. 

But in the meantime, a few 

telecommunication satellite 

launches failed worldwide 

and other problems halted the 

launch of the Pakistani satellite, 

causing Alcatel to cancel the 

agreement. Pakistan then also 

lost its allotted slots in the orbit. 

Pakistan bought the Hughes 

satellite designed for Indonesia 

and moved it in the occupied 

slot in December 2002. 

The development of Pakistan’s 

own satellite is not only 

important for the capacity 

building, but for self-reliance 

purposes, as well in case of an 

embargo or other hurdles from 

advance countries as were seen 

in the past. The Paksat 1R data 

and signals will be received by 

the satellite ground stations 

located in Karachi and Lahore. T 

Online Distribution signs AOC for Pakistan 

Online Distribution a 

dominant player in the IT 

distribution business in Pakistan 

with many prominent brands 

in their portfolio signed up 

with AOC for distribution of 

their complete range of display 

products for Pakistan. The 

footprint of Online Distribution 

is spread across the nation with 

7 branches offering the widest 

reach in the country. 

Pakistan’s computer hardware 

market is expected to grow at 

8% CAGR for the period of 

2011- 2015. Whereas, the value 

of computer hardware sales for 

the year 2011 is expected to be 

US$312mn, up from US$292mn 

in 2010. 

AOC, art of colors one of 

the leading monitor brands 

in the world continued its 

expansion in the region and 

added yet another feather 

in its cap by expanding with 

the appointment of Online 

Distribution as an authorized 

distributor to sell its wide range 

of LCD, LED, Ultra-thin monitors 

across Pakistan. 

“We are happy to be associated 

with AOC a global brand which 

not only brings in international 

quality products but also offers 

real value for money. With 

our team of well experienced 

professionals, the in-depth 

knowledge of IT distribution 

trade and country wide reach, 

we are sure AOC will become a 

leading brand in Pakistan soon.” 

said, M. Ibrahim Ojha, CEO for 

Online Distribution-Pakistan. 

AOC is an in-house brand of 

the US$ 11 billion conglomerate 

TPV Technology Limited, the 

world’s largest manufacturer of 

flat-screen monitors. Last year, 

despite the global downturn, 

the Taiwan-headquartered 

company, which manufactures 

monitors and LCD display units 

for major consumer electronics 

companies, shipped 57.174 

million monitor units across the 

globe commanding a staggering 

33% per cent of the worldwide 

monitor market. 

Suchit Kumar, DGM Sales - MEA 

& CIS Central Asia, AOC says, 

“This is significant step forward 

for AOC as Pakistan is key to 

our growth overall growth in 

Asia and we see this as a great 

opportunity to enhance our 

offerings of high value display 

products in this region. T 

15Apr - 14May 2011 


59

PTCL’s Naveed Saeed wins 

APNS’ best corporate communication and PR award 

Naveed Saeed, SEVP 

Commercial, Pakistan 

Telecommunication Company 

(Pvt) Limited won the Best 

Corporate Communications 

and PR Award at the 21st All 

Pakistan Newspapers Society 

(APNS) annual awards ceremony 

held at the President House 

in Islamabad. The prestigious 

award was conferred to him by 

the President of Pakistan, Asif 

Ali Zardari. 

Naveed Saeed is the Senior 

Executive Vice President- 

Commercial of Pakistan 

Telecommunication Company 

Limited, the largest Telecom 

Operator in Pakistan. He is 

responsible for most of the 

revenue streams of the company 

which include PSTN, Broadband, 

Wireless and Corporate 

business, Carrier services and 

International business. His 

portfolio also includes PTCL’s 

Marketing and Corporate 

Communications Department. 

Previously he has served 

as the Operational Head of 

Business Zones (North) for 

Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhuwa 

& AJK/FANA at PTCL Under 

PTCL, reinforcing its aim to 

make communication more 

affordable for its customers, has 

come up with a new exciting 

internet and SMS tariff for its 

valued customers of Vfone, the 

country’s largest WLL network. 

According to details, PTCL is 

offering an internet tariff of Rs. 

2.00 per 15 minutes (15 min 

plus) and an SMS tariff of Rs. 

0.30 per SMS for all networks 

having an objective to ensure 

the continuity of quality service 

and facilitation of its customers. 

his leadership the zones 

showed significant 

improvement in all 

areas of the business. 

He has given PTCL a 

new direction, especially 

in areas of business 

development and network 

rehabilitation, which 

has set a benchmark in 

improving the existing 

performance. 

Naveed Saeed has a rich 

profile in the telecom 

sector spanning over 

a period of nineteen 

years. He has been a star 

performer throughout 

his career holding leadership 

positions at the most prominent 

telecommunications companies 

across South Asia, Africa and 

the Middle East such as PTCL, 

Warid Telecom (the Abu Dhabi 

Group), IMTCL, (Thuraya 

project), Mobilink, (an Orascom 

Telecom GSM Company formerly 

a Motorola GSM company), 

Instaphone, Pakcom Limited 

(subsidiary of Millicom AMPS) 

and Paktel Limited (a Cable and 

Wireless company now a China 

Mobile company).Naveed Saeed 

PTCL Vfone has the country’s 

largest WLL coverage, with the 

liberty of prepaid and post paid 

options. It gives its customers 

the facility to have unlimited 

free calls from Vfone to Vfone 

and Vfone to PSTN in family 

and unlimited packages at 

extremely affordable rates. It 

gives its customers an edge 

over the others by providing 

them with a high speed internet 

facility as PTCL Vfone supports 

high speed internet with CDMA 

1x technology along with the 

Naveed Saeed, SEVP, PTCL receiving Corporate 

Communication & PR Excellence Award 

from President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari 

has always given prime focus on 

his relationship with the media 

and has taken keen interest in 

regularly highlighting PTCL’s 

achievements and business 

developments by sharing them 

with the press. In critical 

situations, such the employees’ 

strike last year, his crisis 

communication management 

and positive media engagement 

draw special attention and 

appreciation, in particular from 

the telecom, media and PR 

industry. 

SMS facility to and from all 

networks at a very nominal 

rate. 

Naveed Saeed SEVP 

Commercial on this occasion 

has said that PTCL has always 

strived to provide best packages 

and offers to its customers and 

these new internet and SMS 

rates will have an added effect 

on facilitating our customers. 

He further added that PTCL has 

always and will always strive 

to provide its customers with 

the best and most affordable 

Farah Hussain 

Commenting on his 

achievement, Naveed 

Saeed expressed his 

profound happiness and 

joy and said that he was 

proud to be part of the 

top management of one 

of the best corporate 

entities of the country. 

PTCL takes great care of 

its relationship with all its 

stakeholders at all levels 

and enjoys extraordinary 

rapport with the media. 

He thanked all the 

newspapers, TV channels, 

magazines and especially 

all telecom reporters from 

across the country for their 

overwhelming support for him 

to highlight PTCL’s achievements 

and their positive criticism 

to improve its products and 

services. He said that he takes 

immense pride in his relationship 

with the media. He also thanked 

his team and PR agency for 

their exceptional support which, 

he said, has enabled him to 

achieve this great recognition by 

APNS in the shape of its Best 

Corporate Communication and 

PR Award. 

PTCL introduces 

new Vfone internet and SMS tariff for its customers 

T 

services. 

Syed Asim Ali EVP Wireless 

Business said, these new rates 

are to facilitate our customers 

while elevating PTCL’s 

image as consumer oriented 

organization. Adding to this 

he said that PTCL have plans 

to introduce more customer 

friendly offers in near future 

also. 

Further information can be 

obtained from PTCL helpline: 

1236 or by visiting nearest PTCL 

franchise or One Stop Shop. T 


15Apr - 14May 2011

Qatar government sets up broadband company 

The Qatari government has 

established a new company 

called Qatar National 

Broadband Network Company 

(Q.NBN) with the aim of accelerating 

the roll out of the 

broadband fibre-to-the-home 

(FTTH) network across the 

country, according to Qatar’s 

telecoms regulator, ictQatar. 

Dr. Hessa Al-Jaber, secretary 

general, ictQATAR, said: “The 

Qatar National Broadband 

Network represents a bold 

Gulf Bridge completes UAE cable landing 

Mobiserve rolls out Saudi’s First 4G Network 

Mobiserve, a leading solutions 

provider for technical 

and telecoms infrastructure 

services and engineering in the 

region, said it has launched the 

first Long Term Evolution (LTE)- 

WiMAX forth generation 4G 

network in Saudi Arabia. 

Mobiserve was selected by 

vendors Samsung and Huawei to 

deploy the landmark project on 

behalf of Saudi operator Mobily. 

Its scope will cover the project 

implementation including survey, 

design hardware and Radio 

step forward in Qatar’s drive 

to be a leading knowledge 

economy.” 

Q.NBN is to provide fibre 

access to individuals and businesses 

across Qatar, with a 

coverage target of over 95% 

of the population by 2015. 

This government-led initiative 

was developed in consultation 

with network operators 

Qtel and Vodafone Qatar, and 

will support the development 

of their broadband service 

In a milestone achievement, 

Gulf Bridge International 

(GBI), the Middle East’s first 

privately-owned submarine cable 

operator, has announced the 

landing of its cable at Fujairah in 

the UAE. 

The cable will connect to the 

landing station of du, an integrated 

telecom service provider 

in the UAE. 

The cable landing in Fujairah is 

the first of ten planned cable 

landings around the Gulf region, 

said a statement from GBI. 

To be launched later this year, 

the GBI cable system is a high 

capacity, fiber-optic communica- 

Ahmed Mekky 

tions cable which will connect all 

the Gulf countries to each other 

and provide onward connectivity 

to Europe, Africa and Asia, 

it added. 

This connectivity will ensure 

that the GBI cable system will 

Frequency (RF) installation and 

commissioning. 

With its selection of Mobiserve, 

vendors Samsung and Huawei 

ensure best in class expertise in 

the installation of a complete 

4G network that will significantly 

increase data speeds for 

Mobily’s estimated 5 million 

customers. 

The LTE-WiMAX 4G network 

will be the highest speed data 

network in the country with 

speed estimated to be two 

times faster than current 3G 

Sameh Atalla 

Dr. Hessa Al-Jaber 

offerings to government, 

enterprises, and consumers. 

Q.NBN is to focus solely on 

the deployment of a passive 

network infrastructure, 

leveraging existing and new 

infrastructure in Qatar. 

As part of its initiatives to 

drive demand and uptake of 

broadband in the country, 

ictQATAR is fostering the development 

of a digital content 

ecosystem that encourages 

innovation and entrepreneurship 

including national digitisation 

and cloud computing 

for government, enterprises 

and individuals. T 

offer the most comprehensive 

geographic reach of any subsea 

network in the region, remarked 

board member and CEO of Gulf 

Bridge International, Ahmed 

Mekky. 

Commenting on the achievement, 

Mekky said, landing is 

another significant step towards 

the launch of the GBI Cable System. 

We are committed to our 

vision of Connecting the World 

to the Gulf.” 

“GBI will offer our customers 

greater choice, value, diversity 

and resilience. We are also glad 

to work hand in hand with a 

number of outstanding companies 

such as ‘Du’, who are going 

to help us realize this vision,” 

Mekky added. 

Farid Faraidooni, chief commercial 

officer, du, said: “Once 

operational, the cable will not 

only expand the choice of connectivity 

but more importantly 

will enhance the redundancy in 

operations.” 

Over the next few months, the 

cable ship, “Responder”, will be 

working in the Gulf waters with 

a fleet of other specialized ships, 

to continue the installation 

process of the GBI Cable System, 

which is configured as a selfhealing 

ring within the Gulf. T 

networks. 

CEO Sameh Atalla, said, 

“Mobiserve is looking forward 

to begin work on such a 

breakthrough project as we are 

committed to deploying the 

latest advanced technologies 

in conjunction with our vendor 

partners Samsung and Huawei.” 

“Saudi is setting the benchmark 

for next generation connectivity 

with forward looking operators 

such as Mobily beginning to 

implement the highest speed 

networks beyond 3G.” T 

15Apr - 14May 2011 


61

New Nawras Business Group 

offer gives free national calls and SMS for 3 months 

Every Nawras business 

customer activating a 

minimum of five new mobile 

postpaid lines before 29 May 

2011 is eligible for free national 

voice calls and SMS among its 

employees for three months. 

Becoming a Nawras Business 

customer has always led to 

great value telecommunications 

and with this latest offer for 

new corporate customers there 

are even greater savings to 

be gained. Already popular 

with many businesses, Nawras 

Business Group is the only 

service in Oman that allows 

free national calling and free 

national SMS service within a 

company, for a small monthly 

subscription. With the launch 

of this offer, even the monthly 

subscription fee is waived for 

three months. 

Nawras business customers can 

contact their dedicated account 

manager to take advantage of 

this offer or to find out more 

details. New customers are 

invited to visit any Nawras Store 

or the website at www.nawras. 

om/nbs or speak to a Customer 

Champion by calling 9501 1503. 

At the end of the Nawras 

Business Group offer period, the 

company’s telecom administrator 

will receive an email alert. At 

that point, a decision can be 

made to continue the service for 

the normal minimal subscription 

of 3 Rials per line for voice or 1 

Julie Amann 

Rial per line for SMS or 4 Rials 

per line for a combination of the 

two. 

Issam Al-Ismaily, Mobile 

Product Manager – Business, 

said, “With this great offer, 

we are looking forward to 

welcoming many new business 

customers to Nawras. Now 

there is a fantastic opportunity 

to try out our professional, 

customer friendly approach 

while making savings on 

company communication 

expenses at the same time. It’s 

a winning formula with nothing 

to lose!” T 

Nawras awarded ISO certification for information 

security management system 

Nawras, Oman’s 

customer friendly 

communications provider, is 

delighted to announce that 

it has achieved the ISO IEC 

27001:2005 certification 

for its information security 

management system. The ISO 

(International Organization for 

Standardization) is testament 

to the care that Nawras places 

on its back office support 

systems - fundamental to the 

delivery of its award-winning 

Under the agreement, 

which includes the whole 

region with the exception 

of Lebanon, Prologix will 

distribute EnGenius complete 

range of wireless data 

and voice communication 

solutions, which includes 

wireless LAN products and 

accessories and long range 

cordless phones. 

Leo Meng Chee, general 

frontline customer service - as 

well as a constant drive to 

enhance customer service which 

led to the introduction of the 

MyNawras self-service portal. 

Nawras Information Technology 

Director, Ali Abdali, outlined the 

importance of being awarded 

the ISO by saying, “Achieving 

ISO recognition for the high 

standards of IT service achieved 

by our team is a great honour 

for all involved. While we are 

constantly looking for new ways 

manager, EnGenius 

said: “Prologix has 

an extensive reseller 

network in the Middle 

East region and has 

established itself as 

a formidable value 

added distributor, 

with a highly capable 

and motivated team. 

“We are very pleased 

to have been signed 

to improve delivery standards 

for our customers – both 

internal and external – this ISO 

certification is an important 

benchmark for our efforts todate. 

Abdali explained that receiving 

the ISO certificate is the result 

of several years of good practice 

in management and operation by 

Nawras. The certification process 

was relatively short as almost 

all the compliance requirements 

and certifications were already 

in place. The IT team at 

Nawras has been extending 

its management information 

system while applying high 

quality standards and using best 

industry practices. 

Abdali concluded, “Since 

customers are our focal point at 

Nawras, we naturally started the 

certification process in customer 

related services. Therefore the 

first two areas we have certified 

are ‘MyNawras’ and the ‘Support 

Services’ service desk.” T 

EnGenius signs Prologix as exclusive ME distributor 

on as distributors for 

EnGenius, a prestigious 

worldwide brand. This 

partnership enables us 

to increase our profile 

and footprint in the 

Middle East and we are 

committed to providing 

the highest levels of 

service and support to 

both, EnGenius as well 

as our resellers. T 

Publisher-Editor: Khalid Athar - Printed by: Javed Khursheed at Khursheed 


Printers (Pvt) Ltd. Islamabad. Place of Publication: #6, St-39, G-6/2, Islamabad 15Apr - 14May 2011 

Vol: 06, Issue: 04

April 

Global Telecom event 2011 

May 

Group Exhibit Hydrogen + Fuel Cells 

04 - 08 Apr - Hanover, DE 

2011 NAB Show 

09 - 14 Apr - Las Vegas, NV, US 

LTE Latin America 

12 - 13 Apr - Rio de Janeiro 

East Africa Com 

12 -13 Apr - Nairobi, Kenya 

LTE MENA 

18 - 19 Apr – Dubai, UAE 

ElectronTech Expo 

19 - 21 Apr - Moscow, Russia 

SAMENA Beyond Connectivity 2011 

25 - 27 Apr - Abu Dhabi, UAE 

Comex 

25 - 29 Apr - Muscat, Oman 

Connect 2011 

03 05 May - Karachi, Pakistan 

Global Telecom Investment Forum 

09 - 10 May - Manama - Bahrain 

Broadband World Forum Asia 

10 - 12 May - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 

MECOM 2011 

16 - 18 May - Abu Dhabi 

GITEX Saudi Arabia 

16 - 19 May - Riyadh - KSA 

LTE World Summit 

17-19 May - Amsterdam 

TIA 2011: Inside the Network 

17 - 20 May - Dallas, US 

Saudi Com 

23 - 24 May - Manama, Bahrain 

SAMENA Mobile Broadband Summit 2011 

23 - 24 May - Islamabad, Pakistan 

June 

Arab Advisors Group 

6 - 7 June, Amman, Jordan 

7th Mobile Roaming Asia 

07 - 08 Jun - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 

West & Central Africa Com 

15 - 16 Jun -Le Meridian Dakar, Senegal 

July 

VAS Africa 

06 - 07 July - Johannesburg, ZA 

San Francisco Data Center Conference 

28 Jul - San Francisco, US 

September 

LTE Asia 

06 - 07 Sep - Singapore 

Nigeria Com 

20 - 21 Sep - Lagos , Nigeria 

Wholesale World Congress - WWC 

07 - 09 Sep - Madrid, Spain 

OSS BSS World Summit 

08 - 09 Sep - London 

IT Siberia. SibTelecom. Broadcasting Siberia 

20 - 22 September - Novosibirsk, Russia 

October 

medialive!, 2011: 

16 - 18 Oct, Abu Dhabi, UAE 

Technology for Marketing & Advertising 

26 - 27 Oct - Shanghai, China 

SAMENA Convergence to Qatar 2011 

18 - 19 Oct - Qatar 

CTO Telecom Summit 

02 - 05 Oct - Scottsdale, AZ, US 

WHIR Networking Event: 

20 Oct - Washington DC, US 

15Apr - 14May 2011 


63

Teletoons 

Dad, Why do we need five 

fingers, when there are only 

two mouse buttons? 

Dad, Why don’t you 

buy one of those 

screen savers? 

....and he thinks 

I’m slow. 

I am really getting worried about the increasing use 

of credit cards... 


15Apr - 14May 2011

Teletimes April 2011.pdf

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