WiMAX continues to evolve in Pakistan

Arsalan Tariq Mir

Thursday, 18th December 2008

WiMAX in Pakistan emerged commercially with the launch of Wateen in August 2007. Recently, Mobilink has come up with its WiMAX brand ‘Infinity” and now it looks like the competition will soon elevate with Wi-tribe and TeleCard entering the WiMAX service race in Pakistan, the only country in the world having a nationwide commercial deployment of WiMAX services.

Wi-tribe is a joint venture of Qatar Telecom (Qtel) and A.A. Turki Corporation for Trading and Contracting (ATCO) in partnership with Clearwire. Wi-tribe is already offering services in Jordan and in Pakistan it has emerged out of the acquisition of majority stake in Burraq Telecom that occurred more than a year ago. They plan to showcase the real world benefits of Wireless Broadband to Internet community in Pakistan.

We will be offering high-speed Internet that is simple, affordable, and a portable alternative to fixed broadband. The Motorola WiMAX solution frees customers from the fixed line services.

Mohammad Sadiq
CEO, Wi-Tribe Pakistan.

Motorola has signed a multi-year WiMAX contract with wi-tribe Pakistan limited. Motorola has commenced deploying wi-tribe’s WiMAX network in the 3.5GHz spectrum. Commercial launch is expected during 2009.

TeleCard, a fixed wireless operator renowned for its Go-CDMA service, will also roll-out WiMAX under their current brand Supernet which is already offering internet services.

Newest development at the TeleCard will further enhance the Company’s profitability and will be a significant contributor to stakeholder satisfaction on an ongoing basis.

Aamir Niazi
Vice Chairman, TeleCard

Augere, a European company focused on broadband delivery in emerging markets, has beed selected by TeleCard as the principal contractor to design and build the network such as to position a great offering / value proposition for the growing and very quality sensitive internet user community in the country. The equipment deployment has commenced in initial phase and the company expects the offering of service commercially by next year.

The Writer, Arsalan Tariq Mir, is a Telecom enthusiast and an undergraduate student in Telecom Engineering based in Karachi. He can be reached at arsal_mir [at] yahoo.com

This entry was posted by Ammar on December 18, 2008 at 7:01 pm, and is filed under By Other Writers, Engineering, Technology, Telecom. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0.You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

Comments (18)
Pings (2)
Related Posts

#1 written by Shoib ur Rehman 3 years ago

Wimax is future and alternate of last mile copper. In last couple of decade’s world has bottle neck of bandwidth restrication.although DSL is trying to cover-ups but due to distance restrictions and again the copper media is involved as last mile it is not feasible in third world countries. Bandwidth hungry market required Wimax.its a new technology but with the passage of time it will mature.
Wateen is the first company who deploy Wimax network in 22 cities of Pakistan.

Shoib
Manager Satellite
Wateen telecom pakistan

Quote
#2 written by Ammar 3 years ago

Indeed. WiMAX has been a great replacement to copper media.

Let us see how the competition grows and how the market becomes more consumer friendly in terms of the cost.

Quote
#3 written by shoib ur rehman 3 years ago

Cost will reduce when competition increase,but the profit for the companies will be less and this situation leads the company either stop services or they have option to merge with other companies.

Quote
#4 written by Ammar Faheem 3 years ago

Shoib Sahab, I have a query, if you may please answer it for me. Where do you see Wateen two years down the line? Will it even be operational?

Why am I asking this? Because I have been a Wateen user for almost one year now and the service has been sometimes very good and sometimes extremely bad.

Very recently, there was a total blackout of services and the Wateen call center informed me that the service was down all over Pakistan for maintenance/upgrade…

As the competition increases, how will Wateen handle the pressure having earned itself a bad name already? I have not heard a single Mobilink Infinity customer complaining as compared to a Wateen user.

I am asking for your opinion on this, personal or what you people might have discussed amongst colleagues at Wateen.

Quote
#5 written by Arsalan Tariq Mir 3 years ago

@ Shoib ur Rehman

No doubts that Wateen was the first to deploy WiMAX in 22 cities of Pakistan. But like all opening market entrants it should have maintained the quality of service which sadly Wateen has not been able to maintain.

Talking of the reduction in cost with the increase in competition, you said leads to company closure or merger, but I think Mobilink the first GSM operator has survived the competition with four other operators. In my view all this depends on the strategy with which you plan and forecast the future before you go ‘on-air’.

Quote
#6 written by Ammar Faheem 3 years ago

@ Arsalan

but in the case of GSM, you have a huge subscriber base and a lot of people carrying cell phones with them. So several companies served the purpose.

In the case of internet, we do not have so many users in Pakistan, and the figures drop even lower if you speak of broadband. This is wireless broadband we’re talking about which is relatively new in Pakistan…

If we get more penetration and the number of users is substantially increased in Pakistan – all works well – else, I think companies might be forced into mergers…

what say?

Quote
#7 written by Arsalan Tariq Mir 3 years ago

When Wateen entered the market the wireless broadband was totally a new concept in Pakistan but now the consumers are well educated of it. So I think if proper focus is set on target marketing survival is possible!

Quote
#8 written by SAWJ 3 years ago

You guys can also make use of my tech blog to post such articles if you want to.

I won’t have to write much then!

Quote
#9 written by Ammar Faheem 3 years ago

You have my permission to paste the same articles at your tech blog, Ali =)

Quote
#10 written by Arsalan Tariq Mir 3 years ago

Ali, yes you may post it on your tech blog!

Quote
#11 written by SAWJ 3 years ago

@Ammar: Does it look like I’m going to ever ask for your permission about anything?

@Arsalan: Thanks.

Quote
#12 written by SAWJ 3 years ago

Wateen is pissing me off right now! Very slow.

Quote
#13 written by Ammar Faheem 3 years ago

@ Ali : I was trying to be hopelessly courteous! Although I know tujhey zaroorat nahi hai poochnay ki, aur na hi tu poochega :@

Quote
#14 written by Ammar Faheem 3 years ago

and yes, Wateen is very very unpredictable. And its actually BAD in North Nazimabad…

Quote
#15 written by Tech Turtle 3 years ago

Well, so much for the argument of WiMAX being the solution for bandwidth hungry markets, whereas WiMAX it self has a limitation over how much bandwidth can a single access point give (which is not more than 7Mbps at max). Moreover, unlike GSM, WiMAX also has access point hopping issues, which results in not-so-seamless service. Wateen has yet to provide a seamless service to the consumers where the broadband coverage itself should be able to cater to the masses, instead of pinning it down to their homes using indoor or outdoor devices.

Quote
#16 written by TECH SAVY(MAIRAJ UDDIN) 3 years ago

Aazing blog gyz keep up the gud work

Quote
Type your comment
You may use these HTML tags: <a> <abbr> <acronym> <b> <blockquote> <cite> <code> <del> <em> <i> <q> <strike> <strong>
Comment Feed for this Post

WiMAX continues to evolve in Pakistan

Arsalan Tariq Mir

Most Viewed Articles

Recent Comments