Mobile banking, convergent devices and bio-metric free-floating devices rendering targeted advertisements are some of the things that are mentioned in every conversation in every nook and cranny of today's society. With the possible exception of the hallowed halls of our esteemed government where our leaders are only concerned with their personal bank accounts while still being a bit vague on the difference between a microwave and an Espresso maker.
This dearth of knowledge of all things relating to the Internet is clearly demonstrated to all and sundry who try to wrest any piece of meaningful information out of any of the government's Websites starting with that of the Ministry of Science and Technology. It happens to be a pet peeve of mine thugh I can't say as much about it today as the site's server appears to be non-functional as of this writing. The Pakistan Technology Board of the MOST has its very own website as well. I can't say much about that either as none of the headings on the home page appear to have links. In the words of Stan Lee: 'Nuff Said!
However, I digress from today's topic which is, or was intended to be: Going Online in Pakistan.
For the people here, the problem is not what to do on the Net (and don't we all know what we do) but how to get there in the first place. This is not as bad as it used to be. The ease of connectivity started with Brain, CyberNet, SuperNet and others offering cheap dialup with easy payment options. Suddenly, the World Wide Web was in everyone's reach with no hassles. Even those people who had been afraid of TV remote controls learned how to send emails to the near and dear who were far away (is there a contradiction in terms here?). The notable exception remains the politicians and wonted leaders of the people. There I go, meandering from the main topic again.
With public outdoors activities being close to nil, the demand for bandwidth is continually outpacing the availability. Those little wires are no longer for email and cheap phone calls only but for things unthought of only a few years ago. One of my cousins is hugely proud of his Internet radio on which he can get a few thousand music channels. One colleague of mine connects his Play Station Portable from the office and plays games on-line. Yes, the whole office know about it but the man is incorrigible.
Once the masses knew about getting on-line, the next evolutionary step was connectivity from everywhere; while at work, at home, on the road. To answer this demand, we got Blackberries, GPRS, Wifi and WiMax. When you see people hunched over in corners during weddings, movies and funerals, don't think that they are contemplating the infinite cosmos; instead, they are thumping those little buttons to reply to their emails.
So, the basic hurdles have been overcome to a "Connected World". So how are businesses dealing with it? By businesses, in the context of today's article, I mean the infrastructure providers, or ISP's, as they are called.
The change in their markets is most obvious to them. The understanding of the change, though, still alludes most of them. Low cost, albiet low speed, Internet became available in the early Nineties to people in the large metropolitan areas. High speed access with astronomical prices could be afforded only by multinationals at that time. Our dear government put the brakes on as best as it could and at one time connectivity costs in Pakistan were eight times higher than those in India. This caused the call center business in Pakistan to die in its infancy with all the clients going to companies across the border with all their other budgets as well.
Time and tide... as the saying goes. The prices for high speed access started coming down in spirals to the point where my colleagues today ask me why we have "only" 3 megabit bandwidth in our office. Only 3 Mbit, sigh! We used to get all our work done with 64 Kbit. That was, however, before Youtube came around.
The larger ISP's were the hardest hit by this constant downward revision of prices and resisted the change till the day PTCL took the prodigious step forward and offered DSL to everyone at almost a pittiance. I still have a hard time believing that PTCL of all companies did that. Why the other ISP's did not go bankrupt overnight is attributed only to the factor that most businesses still don't trust that PTCL would be able to provide unbroken service so continue paying higher amounts to others.
How are these others reacting to PTCL's offer? On the surface it seems that the larger ISP's are still hoping that it's all a bad dream and will fade away in the morning. The smaller ones are moving to niche markets or creating the niches where none existed before. A case in point is the highly successful venture of Mobilink into the Blackberry market. One moment, everyone was restricted to work-related stuff while in the office which could be escaped from on the weekends. In the blink of an eye, people started sleeping with Pearls under their pillow lest the miss an urgent memo from the boss. Why all bosses have nothing better to at 6 in the morning remains unsolveable.
What other niches are there? The answer is: As many as a good marketeer can think of.
While a lot, or even most, of technology comes from the West, most reworking to cheaper models are made in the East. We, being in the middle, get bombarded from both sides. In terms of percentages, high tech may not be pervalent throughout most of the people here, but those who do have them certainly know how the best utility. One person I met who works overseas told me how he has his home phone line plugged into a VoIP server which forwards all calls to his Wifi-enabled cellphone. Now his mother can call him wherever he is for the cost of a local call.
Wow! Vernor Vinge called it the scietific event horizon with advances in technology coming in faster than most people could comprehend.
As I was saying, the step after connectivity is unshackled connectivity: Be online while you are driving. Highly dangerous and will get you a hefty fine if caught, but how cool!
The options started coming with WorldCall's EVDO, Mobilink and Wateen's Wimax and Telenor's Edge. They keep on offering me such goodies.
The above providers have such nice options but I still don't understand why they keep trying to sell to the wrong market. I fail to see why a user at a fixed location would need to install WiMax. ADSL and fiber offer much high throughput with much better reliability. PTCL and WorldCall's reliability is a bit questionable but the prices can't be beat for the home user. Additionally, all Wimax offerings are volume based while the home user downloads games and movies which would ruin him in connectivity costs. DSL offerings are faster and don't put a cap on volume.
They don't seem to understand that a WiMax ISP must target a different market than the DSL ISP. Instead of mounting their radio equipment on every building in I.I.Chundrigar Road and Clifton and then wondering why profitability is down, why don't they concentrate in SITE, Korangi and Lyari where the phone lines are too noisy for DSL. The users there are factories as well as homes, showrooms, bank branches, schools and so on and on.
They should print up flyers in Urdu and Sindhi in addition to the ones in English and then approach the schools in these areas. Get their little antennas and put them on top of every factory in Korangi. The market is there and it is asking for them.
Evidently going to those areas is not flashy enough. Or it may be that they wish to appear more 'hip' if they can some big names on board. Well, it doesn't work that way. If you have baseballs mitts for sale, don't set up shop in a cricket stadium.
My laptop has a connector for an internal EVDO/EDGE card, why won't someone sell me one of those?
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