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No difference in monthly charges as they seem similar to what other mobile operators are offering, (Read our earlier compilation of BlackBerry rates and handsets http://review.com.pk/2009/08/blackberry-in-pakistan/).

For rates of handset please read on

Zong is offering two handsets the BlackBerry Bold 9000 and Curve 8900. Also another interesting thing is that Zong is launching an installment program for owning these handset, which is as follows. Also its only being offered for postpaid customers at the moment. The installment plan is pretty useless as is apparent from the calculations, an 8900 Curve will cost you a whooping !! 72 thousand in 2 years as against the regular price of 40,000, similarly a 9000 Bold will cost almost double of its regular 45k price.

for other details read our detailed review earlier

http://review.com.pk/2009/06/worldcall-evdo-detailed-review/

I would  be reviewing the services offered by our operators and what hand sets are available with each of them along with the tariff.

Mobilink was one of the pioneers to introduce the blackberry services and handsets in our local market, based on the fact that mobilink had the most corporate client it also was the natural thing to do. With margin of profit declining due to the fierce competition in telecom sector, all the operators are looking are alternate services to make money. BlackBerry services is one of those.

BlackBerry services are typically broken down into two types of broad category there is a BES (Blackberry Enterprise Services) and a BIS(BlackBerry Internet Services) BES are usually for organizations which have an enterprise server installed in their setup, this service allows for official emails and contact lists to be synced over the air directly without any software. For BIS though we need a desktop software provided by blackberry that has to run on a PC inside the organizations LAN to access the official emails, it does provide access to POP and IMAP accounts

Mobilink

as I mentioned earlier Mobilink is one of the pioneers of introducing the BlackBerry services and handhelds in the local market.

BlackBerry Tariff

Mobilink offers both BES and BIS services to its customers, Besides Mobilink is perhaps the only operator that offers BIS services based on the downloaded data instead of the fixed monthly plan. its tariff is as follows you can find it here on Mobilink Site. Also these services are only offered for post paid mobilink customers or Indigo customers

Optimail is a very convenient and bargain deal for users who have frequent access to wireless lan access it would mean that users will only be charged for data that is actually downloaded over the air, the 1000 Rupees BIS Charges is exclusive of the taxes to don’t let that figure fool you for user it actually amounts to some where near 1200 (a little below) also it includes the GPRS charges so that is all you are paying for the black berry connectivity

BlackBerry Handsets

Mobilink is offering following handsets for its BlackBerry services, one thing to note here is that Mobilink is the only service provider which is giving these sets locked to its network.

• BlackBerry Curve 8310
• BlackBerry Curve 8320
• Blackberry 8820
• BlackBerry 8800
• BlackBerry pearl 8120
• BlackBerry pearl 8110
• BlackBerry Bold 9000
• BlackBerry curve 8900

Ufone

Ufone was hot on Mobilinks heals in launching the service.

BlackBerry services Tariff, UFone is offering the cheapest BIS services in all operators maybe its due to the fact that it has lack of handset variety in its offering, also I am not sure but maybe they also are the only operator which is offering these services for prepaid, maybe some of our readers can confirm

Also like Mobilink this package is inclusive of GPRS

Handsets

Ufone is offering following handsets in its list

• BlackBerry Bold 9000
• BlackBerry Curve 8300
• BlackBerry Pearl 8100
• BlackBerry 8800
• BlackBerry 8700 (Who uses this now days yuck !!!)

Warid

Warid with its large post paid user base is another operator which launched these BlackBerry services it is also only offering BIS at the same rate as Mobilink also as other its inclusive for GPRS

Handsets

Warid is offering following handsets in its list

• BlackBerry Bold 9000
• BlackBerry Curve 8900
• BlackBerry Pearl 8120
• BlackBerry 8310
• BlackBerry 8820

Telenor

telenor was surprisingly the last operator to offer BlackBerry services, due to its strong European roots it was expected to launch these services a lot earlier.Tariff is again same as mobilink and warid

Handsets

Telenor has the most limited set of handsets for use with only three up its sleeve.

• BlackBerry 8220
• BlackBerry Bold 9000
• BlackBerry 8900 Curve

Conclusion

BlackBerry services have come a long way, now we have almost the latest sets available through operators, Though you would have noticed absence of BlackBerry Storm from these, the other gripe I have is the sets offered by these Operators are grossly over charged for example Curve 8900 can be bought from market unlocked for about 35k and from these operators it costs you about 40k similarly for other sets they are charging a 5k premium approximately. Zong is still no where in BlackBerry offering I am guessing once they come in the rates might come down,

I have been busy with a lot of things which hopefully have finished, You should start seeing more posts and some features very soon

so stay tuned……

we a couple of months back did an account to visiting the IStore at Gulberg, i found another one at cavalry and visited it read the review after the link

The store is just right side of the Cavalry Bridge if you are coming from Gulberg site, its very easy to miss if you are not looking for it

Apologies for the quality of picture but this is all i could snap while in a hurry, its in the basement of a plaza.

When i went in i was greeted by a very friendly staff, the change in attitude of sales staff is always welcoming even at the gulberg store the staff was very good, not only were they friendly but they knew exactly what they were talking about.

This was no different either, I was looking for a pair of headphones, talked to the sales person he showed me variety, after choosing what i was looking for it was inevitable for mee to look around, i played with their macs and ipods while the sales person constantly without getting irritated told me the specs.

Space inside is little smaller than the Gulberg store but they have the whole range on display from imac to  mac mini. and ipods. They also had some accessories going for mac some them had me drooling

Fortunately the owner was also around so i chated with him, he assured me that they provide full apple warranty for products they sell have all the collection they were waiting at the time for new macs to arrive.

View Larger Map

Overall it was a pleasant experience with enough choices for apple fans to buy their stuff. Give them a visit if you do, let us know how you found it.

We are still waiting on official iphone launch in Pakistan (though hafeez center is full of second hand ones) but to get legal new one wont be a bad idea, lets see how long it takes

He has reviewed the Mobile Banking solution launched by MCB in detail. I am posting excerpts here. You can go through the complete article on his site here,

According to him the service is based on fundamo which is a pretty mature mobile banking solution and working in quite few countries, I am also aware of some of our mobile operators working with fundamo lets see if that effort sees the light of the day, because truw mobile banking or branchless banking as it is said will only come if it really needs no account in a branch to make transactions, keeping my fingers crossed while we wait for true branchless banking while thanking our stars for what ever is out there, still better than the old check system.

keep reading for complete review

MCB has recently launched their mobile banking and payment solution. It is an Internet based service that runs on your mobile phone’s browser. You can link your MCB account with your phone number and that’s all you need to use the service. The basic set of services provided by the solution are:

signing up is easy as Basit notes here

How to Sign-Up
If you are an existing MCB account holder, you can simply go to MCB ATM machine and insert your card as usual. You’ll see an option to link your mobile with your account in the menu now. Opt for that, give your mobile number and that’s it. MCB representative will get back to you with the confirmation and will provide you with the Mobile PIN. Mobile PIN is used to log-in to the mobile banking site while ATM pin is also required to make the transactions.

If you are not an existing MCB account holder, you have to grab one account. My recommendation, just go get one, its worth it!

Note: You cannot use this services if you are an MCB credit card holder.

A video walk through of the service, plus his some good and bad are shared here

A walk-through video

For a detailed walk-through, watch the video below. I’ve made a mobile top-up, mobile bill payment, fund-transfer and balance enquiry etc in this walk-through for you.

Summary:

What you need to get the service:

• An MCB account and a debit card
• A basic mobile phone that has a browser and has GPRS activated

The good

• Simple and easy on basic mobile browser
• Topup to all mobile networks
• Bill payment for all mobile numbers
• Utility bill payment to a number of power companies.
• All gas and telephone bills payable
• Secure over SSL and SMS alerts to inform the user of an un-authorized login/transaction.
• No need to go to a branch to sign-up like other services.
• No need to download a software
• I really like the quick-pay option so that you can save your frequently paid bills and add people who you regularly transfer funds to.

The bad

• Well, the service is very slow at times, very slow as compared to normal mobile sites. On a second thought it is acceptable assuming it is because of the secure transactions and encryption.
• Cant transfer funds to other banks. (App says coming soon).
• Cannot use MCB credit card as a payment instrument.
• A few transactions failed or may be timed out. They can be teething problems but still are very irritating at times.

Conclusion
MCB Mobile is a winner by all means. You cannot call it a killer app as this stuff is not new in the market anymore but it reaches the top with the fact that its easy, convenient, ubiquitous, reliable and last but not least, very secure. Simply go to mcb.com.pk, search for your nearest branch, go get an account and sign up for the service. Happy mobile banking!

PTCL Launches USB Device for EvDO Connections.

The new device looks good sleeker than the previous one, in competition with the one Worldcall Launched in lahore

Sketchy details on the website indicate some kind of voice capability on the device continue reading for a picture of old device and detailed PTCL add.

Here is the quote from PTCL regarding the voice capabilities of the device

The device also supports your Laptop / Desktop PC earphone and microphone. By inserting a Vfone RUIM you can use your Evo device to make/receive voice calls or send/receive SMS.

The old device looked like this (Picture taken from tazzix.com from here )

and the orignal complete add from PTCL is shown below

I have had the chance of using it for about 2 weeks now and here is a detailed review of how it fared from the purchasing experience to the usage one.

bye the way for those of you in Karachi Mohtashim at IT Tazee has done a detailed review here also for those of you weighing your options against PTCL techlahore has a post here

So how did it fare in Lahore hit the read more link for details

Getting on Board

Getting a connection of Worldcall Wireless Broadband is as simple as it gets, you need a copy of your id card and a copy of utility bill (I still don’t understand the need for this ) The will provide you with a box like a CD box which you can take home and start using). The box contains the sleek USB Device a USB Extension cable and manual. Introductory price of Worldcall EvDO device is Rs 3000. That’s all the cost you need to start using this connection

Installing and using the connection

Installing and getting up on the connection is also pretty easy, as soon as you plug-in the device it will automatically run the installer utility and all your drivers will be installed automatically, a new connection with the name “Worldcall EVDO” and a new Program “Mobile Partner” are installed automatically. You can use the mobile partner to connect and you are online !!

Device

Worldcall’s has provided a very sleek device to access the EvDO Network, the device itself is a HUWAEI EC168C EvDO USB Stick. It is a durably built device looks good, the USB Connection rotates and fixes in place to make it more secure for carrying in a pocket or your Laptop Bag

The rotable USB connection makes it very easy to connect to a USB Port on your computer and adjust it so it does not obscure your work.

Icing on the Cake

The most interesting thing for me (might not be important for every one) in the device was the ability to access a micro SD card, there is a hidden slot which appears when you open the device where you can insert a micro SD card, I had a 1 gb old Micro SD card which i inserted and viola!! I had a usb stick with me, I had been thinking of buying a USB device for some time but this really came as a savior, now don’t need to carry two separate things, also it will enable for quicker access to the Micro SD of my black berry for the pictures or videos i keep snapping. According to specs it should be good up to an sd card of 8 gb capacity which is enough for my needs. One caveat how ever would be how this device acts when connected to a computer which does not have all the drivers installed it will install the drivers for evdo before allowing the system to access the storage, however for me its a god send gift

Packages

We have already covered the packages in our previous post Worldcall EvDO coming to Lahore on 25th Of May

just reposting for new readers here

Introductory price for service activation is 2999/- (Its my assumption that it means the cost of device too) which is not a bad deal considering the device is being charged at 4500 in Karachi, and PTCL device costs 6000 rs

Comparing with PTCL EvDO Rates for 2000 you get an upwards of 1 Mbps connection with same unlimited downloads where as for 1800 worldcall gives you a 512 Kbps, and with the recent launch of USB Device from ptcl the competition would be stiff, the plus point PTCL also has is the continuous functioning of device even out of major cities, but Customer service of PTCL has been an issue for people having problems.

Some addition to our initial observations is that wordcall does have an edge of providing flexibility in packages where a user with a lower budget could go for the 1200 Package which is absent from the PTCL deal.

Speed and Connectivity

Speed of worldcall EvDO is as promised on speedtest.net I got this (the download never exceed the 512 though which is the speed of my package.

The browsing is fast and ftp downloads are also fast (will update with accurate speeds later).

I have so far have not faced any signal or connectivity issues how ever as one reader has suggested in his comment and on his blog its not working in Cantt area of Lahore

http://daudahmed.wordpress.com/2009/06/01/worldcall-evdo-not-available-in-lahore-cantt-yet/

similarly i have heard that there are some times (rare) issues of remote computer not responding type but they are still far and beyond.

Conclusion

For us consumer the advent of EvDO and Wimax present some very good alternatives to DSL which some times can be a night mare if your landline has noise etc (Try getting it fixed through PTCL). EvDO in itself presents a very viable options for people on road, allowing connectivity in small portable packages, also with the current load shedding if your laptop can withstand a 1 hour black out it would mean that you can stay connected through the load shedding which in itself was a major thought when i went for this. The competitor in its space is PTCL which has a better cost to speed ratio but a little less flexibility in packages and a considerable startup cost of 6,000 rupees (against worldcall’s 3000 )

Do let us know your experiences and comments

Finally the limited and some what stupid landing page of mobilink (above) has been changed to a much refreshed look(below). The most important is the fact that the new site looks much more good and is not a flash thing over all. Keep reading for the new look

There is an inherent tilt on our corporate to go  to flash while going for their web presence, I have no idea who does these designs but no body realizes that flash base site is heavy and puts a lot of pain in navigation unless its designed keeping the usabilty in mind, every one goes with the flashy and good looking site completely ignoring the fact that the users they are catering are not high tech people. Take a look at the zong site for example try finding what you came for on the site in first 10 second, you will definitely fail.

Mobilink has taken a step in the right direction and this new site is far better than what they had.