#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.
The growth of cell phones has been phenomenal in Pakistan. You cannot go anywhere and not see huge ads of cell phones. Newspapers seem to run on them. This must certainly have economic benefits. But it is service industry not manufacturing. So much of teh benefit does not seep to economy.
I get irked by too many plans and options that keep changing every week and you waste lots of time just figuring out if you have teh right plan.
Its VRy Very Nice Look its Seems very Nice.
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
Adil – thanks for the interesting choice of picture.
All – The idea here is to highlight areas for telecom in Pakistan where improvements are needed. If you have seen my previous posts at ATP or at my blog you know that I often write about the positive aspects of information and communication technologies. However when there’s growth at such an explosive pace (after years of stagnation) then there are bound to be issues, such as those pointed by Owais and Aqil among others. Again, the FDI we got through mobile industry is great but its not a silver bullet by itself.
Here are few stuff as a cellphone user I think we should already know
-Buy Cheap or Disposable phone(!No more snatching)
-Buy a plan or service which works for you (!No overage charges)
-Use it when you need it (!Don’t talk while driving even with headset-!studies say its still distracting-!sometimes its just annoying when people start talking in high tone that how bad this government is or their relatives… j/k)
-Try to avoid giving away your cell number (So you can say to people that you are not reachable if you are not at home/work-!saves bunch of time)
i agree that fdi should meet strategic goals. aim should be to target those investments which can generate large scale employment, introduce new technology and overall improve the competitive position of pakistan viz-a-viz its peers such as india. in the short run however, government cannot be choosy because fdi is needed to finance trade deficit which has ballooned due to the nearly threefold increase in oil prices over the last few years. without fdi, rupee will depreciate which in turn will cause further increase in inflation due to rise in import prices. in the medium term though country cannot only rely on fdi to maintain exchange rate stability. exports have to increase without which economy’s well being will be dependent on the whims of the global market. btw other oil importing countries like india are in the same situation. in india’s case its booming service/software exports as well as the hype over its stock market means that coutry is in a better position to cope with external shocks than pakistan is. on top of that pak has to deal with media bias.
also i agree that improvement in technology helped to drive telecom expansion in emerging markets. however pace of growth in pakistan has been much higher than its peers. pakistan’s teledensisty is nearly 2x that of india and much much higher than countries like sri lanka and bangladesh. i believe govt policy as well as higher purchasing power of pakistani consumer explains higher growth rate in pakistan vs peers. for example govt’s decision to auction two additional mobile licenses 3 years back added spurt to the industry and helped to drive prices down for consumer. moreover the fee paid by the new entrants now appear to be a bargain.
http://dawn.com/2007/05/16/ebr5.htm
…“Pakistan is the uncontested leader in Sought Asia with over 30 per cent of mobile penetration. Pakistan is past India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka,â€