Mobile

A UNESCO sustainable literacy pilot programme using Mobile Phone SMS text messaging has shown significant results in rural Pakistan. In this pilot project which ended last month, the learners who had just completed the basic literacy course, were given a mobile phone each. They receive three text messages a day in the local language. They [...]

In addition to being 4th heaviest user country of SMS, yapping Pakistanis have taken an unusual lead in telecommunication: the largest text messaging growth in Asia Pacific. With Pakistan’s 763 million messages sent during the “festive seasons”, the top five countries with the highest SMS traffic processed over the festive season were the Philippines, again [...]

“Why shouldn’t I keep a mobile phone when I can have it for less than 200 rupees ($3.5) a month,” said Mohammad Akram while tending to his vegetable stall on the roadside of a middle-class Karachi neighborhood. Thanks to Pakistanis’ rising incomes, which have doubled to over $800 per annum in the last six years, [...]

According to locals, it also remains the cheapest compared to the newly introduced wireless phone services by PTCL and V Wireless. Most major cellphone companies of the country have yet to reach these remote areas. Advancement in telecommunications is beating the rate of infrastructure development in the Tharparkar district where wireless phone and the Internet [...]

Pakistan became the second country after Brazil to be picked up for the coveted trophy following a stiff competition with other contenders, including India. The GSM Association, a global trade association representing more than 680 mobile operators, awarded Pakistan its prestigious Government Leadership Award-2006 on Monday. The congress was being attended by mobile industry CEOs [...]

According to the president of the GSM Association, Ricardo Tavares, mobile operators in Pakistan are expected to invest USD3 billion in GSM technology over the next three years. The country’s six cellcos – Paktel, Pakcom, U-Fone, Mobilink, Telenor and Warid Telecom – plan to have invested USD1.2 billion in 2005 alone, with the country’s total [...]

Angry that the person who is stalling traffic in the car in front of you is actually gabbing away on a phone? A mobile phone company has launched a unique public service campaign to promote cellular etiquette. Mobile phones in Pakistan have become a nuisance as well as a necessity. Today, there are more mobile [...]

The number of cellular phone subscribers in the country continues to rise and has crossed the mark of 15 million, with cellphone companies hoping the customer base is likely to double in the next two to five years. Operators believe with cheap calls on top of falling handset costs, the demand for mobile phones is [...]

More than 4.7 million subscribers of (PTCL) would avail a messaging service, launched recently by the company countrywide, and now they can send and receive SMS to other landline and U-Fone users. The PTCL messaging service is being provided to fixed phone line to other similar lines, U-Fone to PTCL landline and vice versa, they [...]

The activation charges of mobile phone connections in Pakistan have been reduced from Rs1,000 to Rs500 per connection, beginning with the new fiscal year, which starts on July 1. However, a 15 per cent excise duty has been imposed on actual transaction value of payphone cards and prepaid calling cards. ‘The proposed measure would not [...]