#10. No cell phones made in Pakistan.
#09. Not much of Urdu services or local content.
#08. Driving + talking on mobile = Accidents …. And no one is doing anything about it.
#07. People using their phone as a status symbol.
#06. No unlimited calling plans.
#05. Silly advertising which is completely out of touch with ground realities.
#04. PTA: Sleepy customer service + a lousy web site where finding information is a pain.
#03. Too many fancy schmancy services (e.g. mobile TV) but 3G and data services are still a rip off.
#02. Prime Minister firing off a statement every few days about rising mobile subscriber numbers, alluding that all problems of Pakistanis are now solved and demanding that Pakistan is where all the foreign. investment should flow to.
#01. Mobile phone snatching.
Babar Bhatti is a Telecom professional based in Dallas, Texas. See more at Babar’s blog: State of Telecom Industry in Pakistan.
Being myself and experienced the issues of installing antennas in the cities in USA. It takes forever to install those in schools, let alone the houses. It is a strict long process where you have to appear to the Community Board and the Zoning board to answer questions on the reason of installing antenna and also the power it will be radiating.
Even in some places, the antennas needs to be hidden by paint and being embedded in the walls so that it does not look good. Also in big cities there are square foot requirements by the building departments where one cannot install an equipment.
I would hate to see Karachi to become an “Antenna Farm”.
Another gripe I would like to share is
“More Chinese Companies in Telecom, Less quality, less pay and more work for the talented professionals”
Bah! every single time I press enter, I seem to remember a new point :p
The lack of Urdu content and services? What sort of services and content are we talking about? All four major companies (Mobilink, Telenor, Warid and Ufone) offer content such as news, gossips, cricket news, stock market details, horoscopes, recipes etc in Urdu. What more do we want from them?
Saad, it’s the type and brand and the features it has that people spend time talking about and showing each other. Basic cell is very cheap but snazzy cell with lots of “doohickies” and “thingamabobs” (American words for extra junk)gets very expensive. Certain numbers cost more than others also although I am not clear on how this works….? That’s where the status symbol part comes in…some phones are more trendy than others. Also the fact that they are common helps the situation…not everybody can drive a Mercedes in Pakistan but for less extreme price you can flash a trendy phone like the big players.
As for data services, Rs. 500 for an unlimited data plan (on Mobilink) seems like quite a good deal to me, considering the fact that one has to pay over S$ 100 for it here in Singapore.
I don’t really agree with the point that cellphones are a status symbol in Pakistan anymore. When everyone and anyone from a rickshaw driver to a businessman owns the little gadget, how can you regard it as a status symbol?