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,

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.

Though PTA has done a commendable job of making all the tariffs for voice available here. but there is still no data i could find for listing down the rates of GPRS and internet being provided by different cell phone or mobile companies.

So following is a consolidation of the data gathered from their own websites in hope that this is useful for people out there. Please note these rates are listed without taxes and are being reported directly from information gathered on the mobile phone company website.

Hit the link for detailed rates.

Ufone

GPRS / Mobile internet rates and packages for UFone are listed here. There is not a lot of flexibility in terms of packages as you can see but for post paid customers the no cap limit on the unlimited package can be a very good attraction. The no subscription rate of Rs 15 per MB is identical to most other service providers packages.

Mobilink

GPRS / Mobile internet rates and packages for Mobilink are listed here. Mobilink’s non subscription package is by far the most expensive charging about 18 Rs per MB. How ever their unlimited package is again has no cap which is of attraction to corporate and post paid users.

Warid

GPRS / Mobile internet rates and packages for Warid Telecom are listed here. Warid offers by far the most packages for GPRS and mobile internet starting from Rs 80 per month to 240 for limited packages. The down side of Warid’s infinity package is the 2gb cap which though enough for users might scare some away.

Telenor

GPRS / Mobile internet rates and packages for Telenor Pakistan are listed here. There are only 2 packages besides the standard 15Mb no subscription rate for Telenor. The subscription package of telenor have very low bandwidth allowance. only 0.15 for the 500 package where Ufone Mobilink offers unlimited at the same price and Warid allows 2 GB in the same price. To compensate for this low bandwidth they have another package but it has the highest monthly subscription fees of Rs 1000.

Zong

GPRS / Mobile internet rates and packages for ZONG are listed here.  Zong has the chepest rates for GPRS usage with a non subscription mode only costing about 10 Rs and the unlimited one a lowly of Rs 400 per month.

Conclusion….

Rate wise Zong appears to be the most cheap one. But we need to keep in mind that coverage also matters for people making this decision as because of low rate and high speed of broadband now mobility is a very major factor for customers wanting to go on full throttle on GPRS. Similarly quality of service and speed needs to be taken in account.

We will be following this post with speed comparison of gprs on different operators stay tuned ….