How a cheaper rate to call Pakistan would help.

I met Baqai Sahib, in The Pakistan Ministry of Telecom, in Bangkok, It was a strange meetup, I did not know him Physically before that :)

I just walked up in the conference and said Hello to 3 Desi looking gentlemen and one turned out to be Baqai Sahib.

He asked me to write a small paper on the below, So I did and sent it to him, Since then I guess MUCH has changed already.


Saturday, September 23, 2006

How a cheaper rate to call Pakistan would help.


Letting the FREE MARKET decides the rate to call Pakistan.

Back ground:

Communication of any kind is a MAJOR Key towards having a better relation ship. Be it a business or a personal relationship.

To develop these relation ships government opens embassies around the world, attend meetings , seminars does road show’s all to BRIDGE The wide gap between nations and worlds which we have created for our selves within our so called boundaries.

Countries try hard, and compete with each other to get the most business out of the other party, and we end up buying items from companies and countries with whom we have BETTER communications with, not necessarily with who better provides the services.


So the key lay’s in communications with our partners, with our relatives with our possible clients in order to grow our economic needs.

These are the processes of a business transaction

Introduce
Educate
Meet
Close the deal.

Be it any business these 4 rules remain the same.

Pakistan is gifted in many ways, how ever the infrastructure does not allow us to fully utilize all our resources, be it our travel in the northern region of Pakistan, Be it Oil in Indian Ocean or be it Gold in Sandak, all are very infrastructure dependant businesses.

One thing we have with us is our HUMAN RESOURCE which has on its own with the help of the govt grown and with the legacy of English, speak English.

This English Speaking very high IQ human resource is available INSIDE PAKISTAN and govt of Pakistan has a separate ministry, which tries hard to send these pupils’s and people over sea’s to bring in foreign exchange.


Now to do that, they have to bring in employers, then physically send them overseas costing a huge amount of money for every party evolved.

The new communications media the TELEPHONE allows us to do a LOT of business over the phone and eliminates the cost of transportation from one place to another.


Govt Of Pakistan took a very bold step and allowed dozens of telecom companies to come in and do business in Pakistan, and the we can now say that we have one of the cheapest telecom services in Pakistan, starting for 2.5$ a month for unlimited mobile to mobile phone calls, which are un heard and un imaginable in almost any part of the world.

These phone companies used the liberty provided to them and are now offering cheap international phone calls which is bringing business from all around the world and inside and over sea’s Pakistani closer and closer.

I Can boldly claim that Pakistani’s economy and nation will NEVER be the same again and will only see a very high growth rate because of this cheaper form of communication.

Now a person living in Ghotki, Sindh can do work for his uncle in London over the telephone and computer doing accounting or collections work, creating a BPO Industry that India has not seen before nor will it be able to see it.

The BPO Industry NO LONGER needs a cheap internet connection to make a bad quality phone call, as now they can get the same wholesale rate from the local telecom company.


The problem however now remains that the caller from outside Pakistan is still hesitant to call TO Pakistan and the BPO can still NOT receive the call from over sea’s using the pure telephone call and has to involve the internet to bring in the call.

If the free market rate is allowed, then the call TO Pakistan will raise and thus raising the business volume in general to Pakistan and raising the business volume.

With the technologies rising, I understand that the regulators in Pakistan can also see that there are disruptive technologies coming that will force the telecom companies to change.

The regulator should also realize the by adapting these disruptive technologies rather then fighting with them, it gives the country an EDGE over others who are trying to fight it.

This EDGE is what I call a gift from god to us, as for example if the call rate to Pakistan becomes sub 1 cent, then there will be a BPO and a CALL CENTER in every single educated house of Pakistan as we have soo many overseas Pakistani’s who would rather employ there family members in Pakistan and get away by paying only 200 pounds a month for the same job which they have to pay 2000 pounds a month, and the same 200 pounds a month in a small city is 24000 rupees a month and that salary is un heard of today, thus creating the MIDDLE CLASS which Pakistan so badly needs to drive its economy to the future.

At this point I would like to say that it will cost billions of rupees to create motor ways and high ways and roads, how ever there are today dozens of telecom companies ready to create the high speed freeways and motorways which we so badly need to do business in the next coming time.

In this new internet driven future, we will not need freeways and motorways as they are very rapidly being replaced with the Internet Super Highway.

IF we want our economy to prosper and our standards of living to be improved, we need a 10meg pipe of internet TODAY in every single educated and non educated home of Pakistan.

This 10meg does not have to be connected to the USA it has to be interconnected as MOST content will develop inside Pakistan.

Letter to Yousuf, MD Pseb

Dear Yousuf,

Here is a little feedback from my side.
BEfore any kind of training is provided, an aptitude test must be taken.
2. The best thing PSEB can do is not actually subsidize cost, but actually tell people what is needed in the market, by getting feedback by the industry.
3. IE on pseb web sites you should show, XX companies are seeking XX QTY employees knowing how to use PHP, or Ajax, or LInux or .net
This will show the industry TREND in Pakistan for the future programmers.
You can also show that X companies are seeking XX Qty of people wanting Y language or software, which can be very highly skilled, and in front of that, you can put, Click here to apply for this job, or click here if u want to have PSEB pay 10% of your fee.
4. The same figures should be published in JANG news paper so that the parents can be shown the direction.
5. PSEB Web site must become a portal that actually gives value to the member of pseb so that we can give you feedback and provide us tools, like the surveys you want us to do, put them online so you have
A. instant feedback.
B. Show the results to other members.
C. Give us compensiation points to give you feedbacks. Does not have to be monetory.


6. Till the above happens, I would like to to see some training programs in my related industry for www.freeswitch.org asterisk.org and freepbx.org trixbox.org

These are open source softwares that are changing the world of telecom in the world, and Pakistan has great potential now for leading the way in it.
7. The lab must be created in all cities with 1 or 2 seniour qualified engineers, who can assist not just the students, small enterprenueur, but even to larger software houses, who get stuck some time in small routes and sub routines of software code, these programmers, can be used as proxy for guiding each other software houses to each others or help us when we get stuck in some small software problems.
my 2 cents.

Mobile Number Portibility now in Pakistan

Finally on the 23rd of March they have opened up the Pakistan Number portability and what that means is that you can take your number from Mobilink to Any other provider like Ufone or Warid.

Amazingly the charge is only 200 rupees and it will take 4 days, I have not tried it yet, but I have asked our office to get one number transfered to see what time it takes.

When we do the LNP (Local Number Portability) in the US with Global Crossing or any other carrier they take 2 to 4 weeks.

So All hats off finally to all the carriers and PTA.

Also I hope that the Local Number Portability will be available soon to take OLD PTCL Numbers to Go or World call or wise versa.

PakistanFax.com Now in Alpha

Today we have finally been able to receive faxes to email on the Pakistani Phone numbers on the service PakistanFax.com

The First Fax was sent to me by Tariq Mustafa and Second by Ali Valika


PakistanFax.com will allow users to get a Pakistan Number from over 40 Cities in Pakistan and receive the fax via email anywhere in the world.

This means that as long as you can access your email you can also access your fax.

You do not require a fax machine for this and the fax comes on our web site and also as an attachment to your email.

For a free signup and trial visit www.PakistanFax.com