Tribune Take: Shy of 3G?
Aleem Bawany, manager online strategy & development, Express News, breaks down for us the impact 3G technology will have on the telecom industry.
Bawany believes since smart phones aren't a major player in Pakistan mobile phone markets, faster data streaming will not threaten the current telecom system to a great extent. However, for smart-phone users, faster internet may mean ditching the traditional SMS or phone calls for applications such as WhatsApp and Skype, threatening traditional revenue models for mobile phone companies.
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@uk: No, Skype is not supported on BlackBerry - here is the article that you can refer to, you can see this article was published some 6 month back: http://n4bb.com/skype-doesnt-want-to-support-blackberry-devices
@Aleem, thank you for taking time for the reply, I would love to see 3G in Pakistan, plus you need to have 3G compatible phones as well. Tethering will be expensive (I have not configured my Playbook and BlackBerry for tethering instead I use my home wifi for connection and for my BlackBerry that I carry:) Users can also use BlackBerry Bridge with Playbook if they want in order to utilize one plan. but yes for blackberry it switches back to my carrier network as soon as I am out of range from my home network. Pakistan has a potential for enormous growth in telecommunication be it consumer or enterprise.
@ali, one threat is tethering though you are right about higher tariffs which can offset costs but that leads into demand concerns. If demand projections don't offset infrastructure costs it's a losing proposition. A cost-benefit analysis is hard without hard business analytics on current usage trends. Personally, I wouldn't mind paying up to 1,500 for 3G.
@syed, on tribune.com.pk portal at least we see a lot of traffic from smart phones. I can only speculate but I am guessing we have some of the highest numbers as a percentage of smart phone users for any website in Pakistan.
You are right about land line and carrier initiated calls in general but the trajectories and specifics will vary from city to city and for 3G we'll probably see a phased roll-out with major cities being targeted first.
Other than VoIP, chat and media sharing there are other interesting scenarios as well. Tethering comes to mind for example which will allow users to connect their 3G enabled mobile phones to their laptops and get pretty decent speeds. When I last tried tethering on EDGE, it was just bearable as a last-resort solution.
@Uk -Skype does not work on Blackberry.
@aleem: i doubt there is any threat to the revenue that these mobile service providers generate. In fact with 3g i am sure they will hike up tarriff rates and 3g would cost more than rs. 500/ month which i already pay for unlimited edge(2gb). On a separate note free messaging apps like whatsapp, viber, google chat and now imessaging (ios 5) already work fine on the crappy edge connections available.
@Syed: Skype is available for Blackberry and Android platforms as well.I use it on my android based phone.
Well, user/consumer will still be able to make a phone call/SMS using smartphone, using skype for all communication may not be a good idea as it would eat up a lot of data plan. Smartphone actually differentiates from those users whose usage is limited to only SMS and phone calls. Question would be how many people in Pakistan are using various applications available on their smartphone for example: facebook, twitter, Email messaging, Appointments, Video capturing and so on OR they are using their smartphone for only call/sms which kills the purpose of a smartphone.
I think skype is currently only available on Iphone at this point but since Skype is bought by Microsoft, we could see in near future skpye being introduced in windows mobile phone but again not all the smartphone are compatible with Skype.
I was wondering if it would also been explained in the article, what does it mean by "Traiditional Phone calls" Is it landline or call from traiditional cell phones? If it was former, I think it will remain healthy in Pakistan's market for sure.