Facebook Partners with Telenor to Launch Internet.org in Pakistan

Facebook, in collaboration with Telenor Pakistan, is launching its internet.org initiative in Pakistan tomorrow, we have checked. Official launch will be made at an event planned for tomorrow where high-ups from Telenor and Facebook will be announcing their plans about internet.org in Pakistan.

For those who don't know, Facebook's internet.org is a global initiative where selected internet or selected websites are made available to users for free. Internet.org is mainly aimed for developing markets where devices and data rates are beyond the affordability of commoners.

Facebook partners with telecom companies, content providers, to make these selected websites available to their consumers. Internet.org, which is currently available in six countries, is aiming to reach at least 100 countries by the end of next year.

Telenor users can expect around 20 websites to be available for free browsing

With tomorrow's launch, Pakistan will become seventh country where Internet.org will be available for masses. Facebook's contract with Telenor will not be exclusive in nature, and hence other operators will also be allowed to join the program.

While we don't have confirmed details, Telenor users can expect around 20 websites to be available for free browsing.

Pakistan currently has over 14 million 3G/4G users, while this number is expected to cross 30 million with-in next eighteen month.

Michael Foley, Telenor's CEO, in a recent interview with ProPakistani had hinted about its partnership with Facebook. Telenor CEO had said that his company will be looking for ways to attract customers towards internet.

Internet activists, on the other hands, criticize that internet.org violates net neutrality norms as not all of the internet is made available for free. Instead, certain websites, which of course include Facebook, are allowed for free while rest of the internet is charged as per usual rates.

Critics say that internet.org is intentionally or unintentionally killing the rest of internet as only selected internet or selected opinion/ideas are bombarded that can be dangerous in the long run, especially because not everyone can join the program.

All publishers can apply to become part of internet.org program, however, not everyone is accepted as they have to follow certain rules/guidelines even if they have to compromise with quality of the content.

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Telenor Posts 10% Growth in Revenues

Telenor Pakistan reported a double digit YoY increase in its quarterly revenues for Q1 2015. According to financial stats made available by Telenor group, Telenor Pakistan generate a total of Rs. 26.08 billion during the reported period, up from Rs. 23.68 billion it generated during Q2 2014

Telenor said that revenues were offset by growth in the subscription base, increased revenues from incoming international traffic and financial services.

The EBITDA margin increased by 6 percentage points mainly due to higher revenue growth and reduction in energy costs in addition to a positive one-time effect from reversal of accruals. The underlying EBITDA margin was 41%.

Capital expenditure increased due to further expansion of the 3G network with more than 900 sites added during the quarter, thereby expanding the 3G coverage to 78 cities.

Telenor’s ARPU decreased by 6%, primarily to reach Rs. 182; mainly due to the continued on-net competition which was partly offset by increased revenues from data and voice bundles and growth in emergency loans.

ARPU for postpaid subscriptions stood at Rs. 628.

Quarterly financial report said that the number of subscriptions increased by 50,000 during the quarter, negatively affected by restriction of new SIM sales during the SIM verification period.

At the end of the quarter, the subscription base was 4% higher than the same quarter last year.

Telenor said that its 27% of the subscribers are now active data users.

Check below financial highlights of Telenor Pakistan for first quarter of 2015:

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Telenor Tops Consumer Complaints’ Chart During 2014

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has said that it received most consumer complaints against Telenor Pakistan as compared to all other cellular mobile operators during January 2014 to December 2014.

PTCL also topped the charts for consumer complaints in fixed line category.

PTA said that it received a total of 24,409 complaints during 2014 against mobile phone companies, while one third of these were against Telenor Pakistan alone.

According to details made available by Nabiha Mehmood, Director Consumer Complaints at PTA, during a capacity building workshop for journalists, a total of 8,274 complaints were registered against Telenor Pakistan.

Mobilink stood second with 4,717 complaints, while Ufone remained third in consumer complaints with 4,600 cases.

4,372 complaints were registered against Zong while 2,446 Waid consumers reached out to PTA against their operator.

Consumer complaints against PTCL stood at 14,514.

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Nabiha Mehmood, Director Consumer Complaints, PTA, explained that telecom consumers initially register their grievances with respective service providers. Millions of such complaints are settled at service provide level, but those disgruntled customers who don't get satisfied with their service providers reach out to PTA with their complaints.

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Ms. Nabiha said that PTA was able to resolve 99.98 percent of complaints during the year 2014 that were registered with authority.

PTA said that majority of complaints against cellular mobile operators were about misuse of services (wrong numbers), illegal practices, verification issues, MNP related issues, quality of service issues and matters relating to billing.

Complaints against PTCL were mostly about fault in telephone lines, QoS issues and about provision of services.

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85 Million SIMs Re-verified, Another 18 Million still unVerified

Telecom Operators companies have processed 85 million SIMs for re-verification through biometric verification system, suggests latest data made available to Pak Tech Insider.

According to data made available to Pak Tech Insider, mobile phone companies have successfully verified 74 million SIMs during two and half month re-verification drive that is going to end on April 13th, 2015.

Another 11 million SIMs were blocked as they were disowned by their owners.

UNVERIFIED SIMS WILL GET BLOCKED AFTER APRIL 12TH, 2015, AND THIS DEADLINE WON’T EXTEND

With this number, another 18 million SIMs are still pending verification, for which mobile phone companies have another 15 or so days to complete the re-verification process.

At the end of re-verification drive i.e. after April 13th, 2015, all un-verified SIMs will get blocked, and customers owning those SIMs will have to get their SIMs replaced by paying extra fee for SIM replacement to reinstate their numbers.

Market sources tell that number of re-verifications per day have now dropped to below 200,000 instances per day, as compared to an average of 1.5 million per day that telcos had maintained before February 26th, 2015.

Officials of mobile phone companies say that they are putting all possible efforts to ensure that maximum number of customers are re-verified before the deadline. Officials told that mobile phone companies are now focusing on rural areas, especially in Southern Punjab and Internal Sindh. High paying customers who have not re-verified SIMs are being approached in person now.

Also Read: 10.3 Million User Subscribes 3G Data in Pakistan at the end of February

Mobile phone companies are fearing that they may have to face extreme conditions after the deadline as millions of SIMs will get blocked and all such customers will at once head to franchises/service centres for restoration of their services.

These millions of customers with blocked SIMs would naturally want to get their connections restored with-in no time and that is when the support system of mobile phone companies is likely to get choked.

Market experts suggest that at least 10-12 million SIMs will never get re-verified as these connections are either dormant, or used by voice exchanges, spammers and those who send Benazir income support messages.

Data shared with Pak Tech Insider reveal that Mobilink is leading the charts with Telenor at second position.

Total Number of Verified SIMs – March 23, 2015

• Mobilink  – 21,719,733
• Telenor –  19,409,530
• Zong – 13,259,127
• Ufone – 11,798,657
• Warid – 7,822,218

Below are details about unique number of CNICs that telecom operators have verified. In other words these are unique number of customers for each operator.

Unique Customers Per Operator – March 23, 2015

• Mobilink  – 17,729,047
• Telenor –  14,039,149
• Zong – 10,119,588
• Ufone – 9,917,210
• Warid – 5,877,560

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Opera browser offer Free internet

Telenor and Mobilink customers in Pakistan will be able to enjoy a day of free internet with the popular Opera Mini browser. Opera Software crafts products and services that connect 350 million people to the internet. More than 130 operators around the world choose to work with us to give their customers the best web experience. The free internet access, sponsored by Microsoft Lumia, is available exclusively to basic Java phone users and is aimed at encouraging more Pakistanis to go online and experience the power of the internet.

To take advantage of the free internet offer, Telenor and Mobilink customers just need to open the Opera Mini browser on their phones and click the Free Internet icon. This will open a page from which users can activate 10MB of free internet access that can be used over a period of 12 hours. Mobile users who do not have the Opera Mini browser installed on their phones can visit m.opera.com to download the free app.

A large number of Pakistanis can access the web only via their mobile phones.  At the same time, many are hesitant to use mobile internet because of the perceived high cost of data. The possibility  to access the internet for free, for a limited time, is a good incentive for users to experience the web for the first time.

“Active mobile users in Pakistan are young and they feel the need to always stay connected with friends. The partnership with Opera Mini and Microsoft Lumia will attract youngsters to use mobile internet and usher in a new wave of mobile-data growth in the country, This is another step towards our efforts to build an ecosystem to further facilitate internet uptake in the country and yet another testament of our ambition to bring Internet For All.” says Omer Bin Tariq, Director Internet & Devices, Telenor Pakistan.

“We want to simplify browsing for first-time mobile-web users. It is great to see sponsors such as Microsoft Lumia come forward and work together toward this goal,” says Aamer Manzoor, Head of Data, Mobilink. “We are open to working with more partners who would like to leverage the Opera Mini platform and reach out to mobile users in the country.”

“Access to the web should not be limited to the privileged few.  Partnering with market leaders such as Mobilink, Telenor and Microsoft Lumia has offered us the opportunity to help lower the barriers to accessing the mobile web and empower more Pakistani users to get online,” says Lars Boilesen, CEO, Opera Software.

Opera Mini’s compression technology

Users can surf the web using the Opera Mini app on almost any kind of phones, from basic Java phones to the latest Android and iOS smart phones. Opera Mini’s unique compression technology shrinks WebPages to as little as 10% of their original size. This powerful compression means that Opera Mini users can browse much more within a set data limit, compared to those using other mobile browsers

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10.3 Million Active 3G Data Users in Pakistan

10.3 Million User Subscribes 3G Data in Pakistan at the end of February, said Pakistan Telecommunication Authority.

Four 3G operators added 1.31 million 3G users on the networks during February with Mobilink topping the charts for converting most customers from 2G to 3G during the said month.

Mobilink added 423,371 users on its 3G network during the month while Telenor added some 405,883 users to 3G.

Zong translated 266,307 customers to 3G while Ufone managed to grab 216,137 users for its 3G Service. At the end of March, Telenor lead the 3G market with 3.1 million subscribers while Mobilink stood second with its 2.6 million 3G users. Ufone had 2.47 million 3G users while Zong contented with 2.11 million 3G users at the end of February 2015.

3G User in Pakistan – Feb 2015:

• Mobilink  – 2,600,904
• Telenor –  3,147,117
• Ufone – 2,470,293
• Zong – 2,116,616

Net Addition 3G User – Feb 2015

• Mobilink  – 423,317
• Telenor –  405,883
• Ufone – 216,137
• Zong – 266,307

3G user’s Market Share – Feb 2015

• Mobilink  – 25%
• Telenor –  30%
• Ufone – 24%
• Zong – 21%

Growth in 3G Users in Pakistan

• July 2014 – 1,896,796
• Aug 2014 – 3,061,857
• Sep 2014 – 3,692,742
• Oct 2014 – 4,725,739
• Nov 2014 – 5,773,801
• Dec 2014 – 7,680,520
• Jan 2015 – 9,072,330
• Feb 2015 – 10,334,930

4G/LTE Users in Pakistan:

At the end of February Zong had 7,261, up from 5,023 4G users it had last month. Warid on the other hands grabbed some 16K LTE users during the month to take the total count of LTE users to 60,923 users on its network.

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