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Monday, April 28, 2014

Pakistan Air Force Today

Five F-16 fighter jets from Jordan inducted into Pak Air Force

Source:- Google.com.pk
Pakistan Air Chief Marshal Tahir Rafique Butt, speaking at the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) Base Mushaf in Sargodha where the force received the fighter planes, said the induction of these jets will further increase efficiency of the Air Force.

He said the PAF is fully prepared for an operation against the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.

His remarks came as the government is engaged in efforts for a peace dialogue with and the banned outfit.

Ambassador of Jordan and senior PAF and Army officers attended the ceremony.

According to reports, Pakistan had signed a contract with Jordan for the supply of 13 fighter jets.

The inclusion of these jets would take the strength of the PAF F-16s to 76.



It has been reported that PAF had agreed to purchase an entire squadron from Jordan, consisting of 12 A models and one B model.

The jets "were in good condition since they had attained Mid-Life Update (MLU) and they would be providing service for another 20 years with almost 3,000 hours on average available to them for flying", according to a media report.

Geo News...... Jang blocked

Geo, The News, Jang blocked illegally in cantonments

Source:- Google.com.pk
ISLAMABAD: Geo TV has been blacked out in all cantonment areas and hawkers are not being allowed to distribute daily Jang and The News to subscribers.
It appears as if the ghost of General Ziaul Haq is still haunting the freedom of the press like it had done during the worst dictatorship during the late ’70s and ’80s.Geo TV invited the wrath of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) by airing the apprehensions of senior journalist Hamid Mir through his brother, that too after the near fatal attack on the senior anchorperson.
Instead of using legal means, some forces have directed all the defence institutions and cantonments to black out Geo TV from cable, and the order was complied with in no time. The hawkers in the Cantt areas have also been directed not to supply daily Jang and The News in cantonments all over Pakistan.
The forces who only know how to use muscle instead of reasoning and logic did not wait for the decision of the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) where the ISI has lodged a complaint against the Jang Group and instead started implementing the contents of this complaint in the cantonments and defence institutions.
Adoption of legal battle to achieve a remedy against a wrong is always appreciated but, despite knowing the fact that only Pemra can order closure of any channel, these forces have themselves assumed the job of the regulator and have ordered cable operators in Cantt areas not to air Geo TV, which by no means is legal.
However, the poor cable operators have no other choice but to bow before the all-powerful men in boots.Importantly, 95 percent population of cantonments is civilian but they too are forced to bear the consequences of the illegal order originated out of garrisons of blacking out Geo TV and not letting the hawkers to sell/ distribute ‘Daily Jang’ and ‘The News’ in the areas controlled by the Pakistan Army.
Every institution has its jurisdiction and it must remain within the ambit of its jurisdiction otherwise things get worse. If any institution has any issues with Geo TV, there are proper forums where such issues could be addressed. For instance, there is the forum of Pemra and also the courts but some forces only know to use force instead of application of laws.
It is not the first time that the Jang Group has been subjected to such censorship as the subscribers have not forgotten the 1997 and 2007 blackouts by the powerful governments but in the end, it was sanity that prevailed and not the senseless power.
The Jang Group has always been adopting the legal means to fight the wrongs done with it and still many cases, including defamation, are pending before the courts.In the present case, despite adopting the legal channel of action against Geo TV through a complaint lodged with Pemra, the forces, without waiting for the outcome of the complaint, have illegally imposed censorship on Pakistan’s most popular media group. However, the Jang Group lives in the hearts of people; it can be blacked out on cable, hawkers can be stopped from selling its newspapers but how can someone remove Geo/Jang/The News from the hearts of millions of Pakistanis?

Thursday, April 24, 2014

3G, 4G Licences Auction Results

3g, 4g Licences Auction Results announced by PTA

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) chairmanannounced auction results of most-awaited 3g and 4g licenses on Wednesday.

Source:- Google.com.pk
A Pakistani cellular company, Zong has won 10 Mega Hertz (Mhz) and 18 Mhz spectrums of 3g and 4g licences respectively.

Zong has been declared eligible to purchase one license of 4g technology after winning bid while the cost of one 4g licence is Rs50 billion.

Ufone and Telenor get licenses of 4 Mhz band while Mobilink grabs 21 Mhz band including license of 10 Mhz band of 3g.
Pakistan’s Finance Minister Ishaq Dar praised efforts Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and Ministry of Information Technology (IT) for organising successful auction event.

Second of two 4g licences could not be sold worth Rs21 billion each at the time while four licences of 3g spectrum has been sold out at Rs111 billion, Dar said.

Transparency in the auction process will be made at any cost and approximately Rs161 income  would be expected after activation of 3g and 4g technologies in Pakistan, he added.

The finance minister congratulated whole nation over successful auction as the development would produce thousands of employments in the country.

ISLAMABAD:
The bids of four leading telecom operators for the auction of 3G and 4G licences, was accepted by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), raising prospects of generating over $1.3billion in revenues for the public purse.

After intense scrutiny, the telecom regulator on Thursday announced the names of successful bidders which are; China Mobile (Zong) PTML (UFone), Mobilink and Telenor Pakistan. However, Warid Telecom Pakistan, owned by the privately-held conglomerate Abu Dhabi Group, did not participate in the bidding process.
According to details, the four telecom giants will now compete for three 3G licences during the auction slated for April 23. “As the demand exceeds supply, the allocation of the spectrum will happen through an auction process,” PTA officials said.

Pakistan, 3G, 4G Licence Auction

$1.1 billion raised from 3G, 4G auction
Pakistan raises $1.1 billion with 3G, 4G licence auction

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Wednesday raised more than $1.1 billion in its long-delayed auction of next-generation telecommunications licences, snapped up by the country´s four existing mobile network providers.

The government sold off four licences to provide 3G services, which allow broadband-speed internet on mobile phones, and one for superfast 4G connections.
The total is close to the $1.2 billion estimated for the sale in the federal budget for 2013-14 but below a bullish prediction of $2 billion made by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar in January.
The government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was elected last year on a platform of boosting Pakistan´s floundering economy and ministers hope the licence sale will bring a boost by improving communications.

 Pakistan has more than 132 million mobile phone subscribers but has lagged behind its neighbours in setting up 3G, which is now the norm in many countries.
Even Afghanistan, Pakistan´s far less developed western neighbour with a weaker economy and more fragile state, has had the technology since 2012.
The successful bidders for 3G services were Norway´s Telenor, Russian-owned Mobilink, Ufone, owned by the Pakistani government, and Zong -- part of China Mobile.
 
All four operators are already established players in the Pakistani mobile market.Zong also won one of two licences available for 4G services. The second will be auctioned later.
Sikanadar Naqi, a Zong advisor, told AFP the company would begin 3G services in the cities of Lahore and Karachi immediately.
 
The final bids for the 3G licences totalled $902.82 million, while the 4G licence went to Zong for the reserve price of $210 million.
Dar said the government would receive half of the money up front and the rest in five annual installments.
The chief executive of Mobilink congratulated fellow bidders and the Pakistan Telecommuncations Authority (PTA) on what he said had been a "transparent" process.
"After this auction, not only 132 million subscribers but the whole Pakistani nation has taken the road of progress," Rashid Khan said. A study by the UK-based Plum consultancy in August last year said 3G could boost Pakistan´s GDP by between 380 billion and 1,180 billion rupees ($3.8 billion to $11.8 billion) by 2020.Up to 900,000 extra jobs could be created and between 23 billion and 70 billion rupees in additional tax revenue generated by 3G, the Plum report said.
Cheap mobile phone telephony took Pakistan by storm in the early 2000s, but only 3.3 million people are signed up to broadband internet, according to PTA figures, offering a huge, untapped market for faster web speeds.
 
Information Technology Minister Anusha Rehman hailed the auction as a boon for Pakistanis unable to afford computers and fixed-lined internet connections.
"Through this, the cheap mobile phones of the under-served people having a price of eight to ten thousand rupees will be become their computers," she said.
But while many welcomed the long-awaited advent of 3G, some on social media lamented the continuing government ban on video-sharing website YouTube.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan raised $903 million in its first auction for 3G mobile phone networks on Wednesday, as well as $210 million for the more advanced 4G spectrum, with four foreign-owned companies emerging as winners from the long-anticipated bidding process.


The four winners of the 3G auction were Russian-owned Mobilink, Chinese-controlled Zong, Norway's Telenor, and Ufone - a company jointly owned by the Pakistan government and the United Arab Emirates' Etisalat.

As for the 4G spectrum, the sole winner was Zong, according to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).

Warid Telecom Pakistan, another company operating in Pakistan, did not make any bids.

Ismail Shah, the PTA head, announced the results to reporters after the auction, which lasted all day.

The total opening price of the four lots of 3G licenses was $885 million while there was an increase of $5.9 million in Lot D and $11.92 million in Lot A at the end of the three round auction.

At the end of the auction's first round there was no increase in the bid price whereas there was an increase of $5.9 million in the bid price of Lot D at the end of the second round. Moreover, an increase of $5.9 million and $5.92 million in the bid price of Lot A had taken place by the end of the third and fourth rounds of the auction process.

Ismail Shah had earlier told Dawn that the first round of the license auction process had concluded with the four competing companies agreeing to the base price.

He later said that the bidding companies had three rounds of waiver available at their disposable which had been utilised in the previous three rounds (five - seven).

The addition of another lot of the 3G spectrum licenses was made in accordance to a stipulation in the information memorandum for the spectrum auction.

A view of the PTA website displaying the round-wise results of the auction process.
A view of the PTA website displaying the round-wise results of the auction process.
The PTA committee is authorised to increase the bid price by one to three per cent per round.

The base price for a 3G licence is $295 million and for a 4G licence it’s $210m.

Mobile phone companies can bid for one 10MHz bandwidth licence or the entire spectrum, comprising three 10MHz licences (a total bandwidth of 30MHz).

The four companies participating in the bidding had earlier logged on to the software of the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) for the process.

The introduction of 3G and 4G spectrum in the telecom sector is expected to revolutionise the way subscribers stay connected.

4G provides even faster speeds and ultra-broadband services, putting data-intensive services such as online gaming, high definition mobile TV and video conferencing within the reach of the average consumer.