As we recently covered blackberry services and devices in our post BlackBerry in Pakistan and noticed that BlackBerry STORM was missing from the available devices for most of the operators.

So we finally have BlackBerry Storm available from Mobilink (I am assuming others will follow steps soon) but the price for device is an extra ordinary 55,000 rupees, yup you read it correct its not a typo a BlackBerry Storm from Mobilink will cost you Fifty Five Thousand Rupees

it costs about 450 USD (which is about 36900 rupees at today’s conversion rate of 82 per 1 USD) networked unlocked in USA http://www.expansys-usa.com/d.aspx?i=175273. You can also get one from open market at about same rate of 36,000 Rupees. I understand that there is a price for being first owners but this device has been released like ages ago, charging a 40% premium on original price is not some thing called for. I wish we see other operators try to normalize this price.

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.

Mobilink recently re-launched its post paid packages again.

Mobilink was the major share holder for post paid market and is still the operator of choice for many corporate due to its separate corporate customer handling.

How ever during these times of recession companies do try to cut down costs and a quick comparison would yield that mobilink post paid packages or Indigo as they call it are not the cheapest ones around, and the historical edge that mobilink had always held that most of the mobile subscribers are mobilink users and so the call from mobilink is cheapest does not hold true any more, so will these new packages do the trick, continue reading to find my take on this

So here are the packages as advertised

there are 5 packages in all as follows

i One Hundred

This is the lowest package the good thing about this is the very low sms rate only 20 paisa which is a good deal, call rates in this are not as low which is fair keeping in mind that this has the lowest line rent.

i Four Hundred

This package has a four hundred line rent, the difference from the first package is addition of free minutes (for mobilink calls only). But surprisingly the sms costs for this jumps to 75 paisa.

i Nine Hundred

This moves the line rent a bit up again adding 100 mb of gprs plus the 900 mobilink to mobilink calls. the call rate to mobilink numbers drop to 0.75 rupees per minute

i Fifteen Hundred

This is just below the most expensive package the major difference is dropping call rate to mobilink calls to 50 paisa, another change is that at this level the call charges to other operators is reduced by 25 paisa to stop at 1.25 Rupees a minute, also added is 250 mb of data plus the sms rate goes down as well to 50 paisa

i Unlimited

This is the most expensive package and there are two versions within it too. The premium one adds conference call and other vas free in the package. If we look at this package it is not as expensive as it looks. for any other package if you add black berry and gprs it is 1000 Rs a month, plus the fact that this is the only package which is offering generous 1000 free minutes to other operators which it self would be about 1000 rs this might come down a lot, for some one doing lots of calls and heavy blackberry and gprs usage it should be a good deal.

Conclusion

Though mobilink has changed some packages but over all still it is on the expensive side, comparing the unlimited from mobilink to the one of warid, warid’s Unlimited is 4000 rs monthly, which when you add blackberry and gprs comes to 5000 (but not all users want unlimited blackbery and gprs usage ) its giving unlimited calls on network unlimited sms plus the 1000 free minutes to other operators. The 100 rs package is an interesting one and might win them some customers as it has a very attractive sms rate plus the low monthly package only zong has a low monthly package of 100 rupees for warid its lowest is 250 rs package.

Will this change in tarrif work we will have to wait and see.