Mobilink Supports WhatsApp Urdu

The world’s mostpopular messaging app, WhatsApp, has just released an Urdu version of WhatsApp Android app, which has prompted Mobilink to exempt all data charges associated with the app’s usage through their Social Bundle. This move has been made in partnership with WhatsApp to promote the app’s usage amongst Mobilink’s large proportion of mobile internet users who All prefer Urdu as their first language, and those residing in towns and rural localities. To avail this limited time offer, subscribers need to dial *114*5# to activate their Free Social Bundle, and enjoy free WhatsApp over Mobilink Edge/3G.

“WhatsAppis now available in Urdu (on Android)!' said Brian Acton, Co-Founder of WhatsApp. “We’re excited to be partnering with Mobilink to enrich communications for Pakistani users in Pakistan and abroad.”

Aamir Manzoor, Head of Data, Mobilink commenting on the benefits of this partnership stated, “Mobilink is consistently looking to empower people to lead an enriched life through the introduction of innovative services and products. Supporting Whatsapp’s Urdu update is another step towards increasing the outreach of the use of internet and data in Pakistan through locally customized services. I am confident that with our free social bundle offer, Mobilink users will make the most out of WhatsAppUrdu.” 

  

Available on Android smartphones, the latest version of WhatsApp has a fully localized Urdu language update. To use WhatsApp in Urdu, customers simply have to change their language setting to Urdu on their Smartphones.

WhatsApp is not just your average messaging app and its popularity the world over has been possible thanks to the plethora of interactive features it offers i.e. Group chats, file sharing with contacts, Status Updates, Location sharing and voice notes ,to name a few. Mobilink believes it needs to spread its usage across every strata of the mobile using community in a bid to build a better real time SMS & MMS alternative, one that connects you with the world instantly through the Telco’ssuperior 3G connectivity.

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LTE the answer to exceptionally growing mobile data traffic

Aoun Muhammad

The data revenues of cellular mobile operators (CMOs) reached Rs47 billion during the year under review, showing a growth of 47.4% YoY. The data traffic has escalated by 19.3% overall in the telecom sector and 40% in voice traffic due to increased subscriptions and competitive bundle offers provided by the cellular services in Pakistan. These cellular companies have taken notice of the explosion of social apps usage in Pakistan and are offering lucrative offers that include daily, weekly and monthly plans for internet usage, which is also a major contributor to data traffic. Consumers are moving from voice call trend towards to mobile data trend because of apps such as Whatsapp, Facebook and Twitter.

There has also been a substantial increase in the imports of mobile handsets worth US $544 million, an indication of the consumers opting for Smartphones with features like email, instant messaging, video and voice calls. The consumers are opting for Smartphones with smart apps to ease their lives on the go and to keep themselves updated with global trends. A Smartphone also provides a window for the consumer to mix their social and business activities. These Smartphones at a time were costly to obtain, but now telecommunication companies, banks and manufacturers are providing discounts and installment offers with 0% markup that make obtaining a Smartphone easy.

The aggregate effect of increase in subscriptions, bundle offers, internet packages, social apps, email and smartphones have created an entire segment of mobile data traffic that is worth monitoring and it because of such factors networks are looking in to 3G and 4G networks. This will not only be a source of revenue for the cellular companies but will also generate employment in the economy, contributing positively towards Pakistan’s GDP.

In lieu of this GPRS/edge supported network, Pakistan has entered in an era of Next Generation Wireless Networks (NGWN) commonly known as 3G and 4G networks. These NGWNs are going to innovative all services across a national platform, including but not limited to financial, business, information, social, and education and entertainment services. In addition to these, there will be superior voice communication and faster bandwidth will make video calls possible. Having a 3G network is a big step for Pakistan, as it means faster internet than Edge/GPRS services, clearer voice calls and a superior experience in mobile finance, entertainment, education, social and business services.

However, Fourth Generation LTE networks will revolutionize the entire process of mobile payments and banking. It will also provide superior voice call quality; the download speed will be faster and video quality clearer. One of the leading telecom operators Warid Telecom has recently launched LTE services in Pakistan and became the first operator to transform from 2G to LTE technology. This transformation will help ease the data traffic being generated from social and business apps but will also update and revolutionize the entire system and lifestyle of Pakistan. The network will be ten times faster and more responsive than a 2G or 3G network as the LTE technology is designed to reduce latency. Video chats and conferences will facilitate social and business lives of a consumer. Introduction of LTE by Warid will also create an influx of investment as software companies will begin to develop apps that are facilitated by LTE networks, which will also generate employment.

In short, our lives will be hard to picture without Next Generation Mobile Networks in the coming future. The introduction of LTE is going to revolutionize and uplift the entire social, economic and financial state of affairs in Pakistan. Pakistan can infact boost its ideas and conceptualization of progress with the help of LTE and in few years make these concepts a reality. These Networks can act as a catalyst that will bridge the development gap between Pakistan and First World Countries, if utilized accurately.

The author of this article is a renowned publicist with a penchant for information technology and corporate sector.

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Whatsapp Now Has Over 800 Million Monthly Active Users

The CEO of the popular social-networking tool Whatsapp has announced that it has reached the milestone of 800 million active users per month. It was noted that this figure was different than “registered users” and hence, is a big milestone.

This was a sizable increase in users from a year back, when the company had just about 600 million monthly active users and also from January when it had 700 million MAUs. This figure suggests that it should be no time until it reaches 1 billion users.

It is also bigger than several mainstream social networks, including Twitter and Instagram, as well as being more popular than Facebook’s own Messenger, which has 600 million monthly active users.

Whatsapp has recently added voice-calling feature on both iOS andAndroid platforms, and now Windows Phone is understood to get it in the near future.

“WhatsApp – now serving 800,000,000 monthly active users. Reminder for the press out there: active and registered users are not the same thing”

Whatsapp was brought for an impressive $19 billion by Facebook just over a year ago and growth rate has been impressive since then. Number of active users has doubled and judging by these figures, the current trends will continue in the near future too.

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Invites for Voice Calling in Whatsapp are Active

Normal users can finally get their hands on Whatsapp voice calling. Previously, the feature was introduced to a group of beta testers on Android who could invite other users into the group. Now it is being rolling out slowly to users across all platforms.

How to get Whatsapp Voice Calling:

In order to gain this functionality, users will have to update their app to the latest version by sideloading it from the Whatsapp website. Once this is done, a user will need to ask another user who already has the calling functionality to call them. Once a user receives a call the WhatsApp calling feature is enabled on your smartphone.

But there’s a minor problem that some users might face. The feature is enabled on the WhatsApp servers for each user and as the feature is still in early stages, there’s a possibility that the servers might be down when a user is called and they might have to wait until they are back up again. The servers are currently up and running without any hiccups.

Please don’t click on any links from unknown numbers as they contain malware.

It is worth warning the users that if you receive a message on any social network or messaging platform to activate your WhatsApp calling using a link or a download DO NOT accept it as such messages contain malware.

It is advised the users ask someone they know to call them or wait to receive an official invite from WhatsApp by receiving a call directly from WhatsApp’s promotional campaigners.

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