Will PTCL slash Internet prices this 14th August?

Posted by BA on Aug 14, 2011 in Pakistan, Telecommunication | 0 comments

Here it is again, 14th August, Pakistan’s independence day. PTCL historically has been slashing Internet bandwidth prices on 14th August. I really wish they do it this time as well especially when they’re offering a 50 Mbps connection, it’ll be great to pay half the price. While their customer support and technical support has usually been a nightmare, their service just works. Just pray that you don’t get a problem in your connection and then your nightmare begins

Come on PTCL, let’s go 50% on bandwidth prices.

Get a 50 Mbps Broadband Connection on PTCL today

Posted by BA on Aug 12, 2011 in Communication, Pakistan, Telecommunication | 1 comment

No, PTCL doesn’t pay me for this but its out of sheer excitement, I just came across the least advertised but certainly available broadband connection by PTCL. We did hear about it earlier in April but now the connections are silently available. No ads, no hype and no big buzz. May be this launch is like that by design (not a home/consumer product yet?)

What do you need?

Ok, so here’s the deal. If you want a whopping 50 Mbps connection at home or at office, all you need is a pair of copper PTCL connections ( yes you need two lines), a modem/transceiver that does the magic and those PTCL guys helping you connect through the big bandwidth.

How does it work?

They call it VDSL2 Bonding technology. It’s a few steps ahead of the normal ADSL we’ve been using with additional bonding and aggregation of two copper line bandwidth to attain more than double the bandwidth. You can read more about the technology here.

How much does it cost?

There are three packages available with speeds 10 Mbps, 20Mbps and 50 Mbps and cost Rs. 9,999 , Rs. 15,000 and Rs. 20,000 respectively per month. There’s an additional (one time) installation cost of Rs. 10,000 when you get a new connection. Yes, that’s costly for a home user but may be very much affordable for small/medium businesses and corporates.

What next?

I’m looking around for anyone who has signed up for the service and will get back to you guys with a review, so stay tuned. If you or anyone you know is using this service, please do let me know.

How to get it?

Call 1236 and figure it out

BlackBerry 9700 No Signal Drop on Holding The Phone

Posted by BA on Aug 11, 2010 in BlackBerry, Smartphones, Technology, Telecommunication | 0 comments

Steve Jobs in his press conference defending iPhone 4′s antenna fault displayed 3 different phones including a BlackBerry Bold 9700 showing a drop in signal when holding the phone in such a way that the hand was touching the metal ring around the phone. Well that’s the most obvious way of holding the phone anyways. I’ve been trying to regenerate the signal drop issue on different networks, different areas of the city and even different different BlackBerry phones and I’ve failed to regenerate the signal drop situation. The only thing that’s missing in my area is an AT&T network :p

See following video in which I’ve tried to hold tight my BlackBerry 9700 Bold and not a single bar drop of signal.

Online Discount on Mobilink Motorola Milestone

Posted by BA on Aug 4, 2010 in Motorola, Smartphones, Telecommunication | 0 comments

Here’s the discount I promised on Mobilink Motorola Milestone guys. When you buy a Motorola Milestone from Mobilink from the following link, you’ll save Rs. 500.   (Offer valid for users in Pakistan only – obviously)

Mobilink Milestone Launch and a free phone :)

Posted by BA on Aug 3, 2010 in Android, Google, Handsets, Mobile, Motorola, Smartphones, Telecommunication | 3 comments

What a day in the life of a blogger!

It all started when the whole local blogger community was invited to the launch event by Mobilink and Google to join hands and make good use of the social media and blogger community to create a stir in the online world and announce the launch of the Motorola Milestone. The launch event was quite a happening event right from the beginning with free giveaway key chain with a 50 year calendar, red bull servings and a cool setting altogether.

I thought I’m the last person to reach as I got quite late though I found out the event is yet to start when I finally reached the venue. The event was all about Mobilink, its new handset Motorola Milestone and obviously the Android 2.1 OS by Google. The session was really interactive with not only speeches but discussions, interaction with the audience, several interesting competitions including sms speed typing test but the biggest of them all was a free Motorola Milestone Giveaway.

And guess what? Yours truly (yeah that’s me) ended up winning the big prize. What was the competition? Well it was “Post a Facebook status about the launch event and get most comments on it“. I’m highly grateful to my friends and fellows who commented on my status and by the time the comments counting began, I had more than 800 comments on  my status. Woohooo!! While there were many close competitors, the phone lands in my hands and now I’m the first proud user of Mobilink Motorola Milestone. My free gift pack comes with a Mobilink Motorola Milestone  handset with an 8 GB of Micro SD card and a beautiful charging doc that I use more for watching videos now   . Thank you very much Mobilink for a great free phone and an amazing evening.

More about the phone

Motorola Milestone is an Android 2.1 smart phone with a 3.7 inch multi touch TFT screen with a slide keyboard. This is the same phone that is known as Motorola Droid out there in US. The black colored device has a 5 megapixel camera and features a ARM Cortex A8 600 MHz processor for normal processing and PowerVR SGX530 for graphics. You can find more details about the phone here.

The phone has been introduced in Pakistan by Mobilink exclusively and the latest 2.1 version of Android OS is the biggest attraction for me. When you  buy this phone from Mobilink, you get 3 months of GPRS/EDGE free and I’m waiting for a referral code that Mobilink promised. Once I have the referral link, I’ll update this post and you’ll get some discount on your purchase. So if you are looking for an Android phone locally, why buy used T-Mobile Androids? Go for a Motorola Milestone.

T-Mobile retires HTC G1 today :(

Posted by BA on Jul 28, 2010 in Android, Handsets, Mobile, Smartphones, Technology, Telecommunication | 0 comments

G1 is the first phone to be launched on Android OS and it becomes a very valueable “first” pioneering the Android revolution. I’ve been using this handset for a long time now and this post at Mobile Crunch proved to be emotionally touching for me. The post says:

Today saw T-Mobile finally retiring the venerable G1, forerunner to the ongoing Android revolution. I’ve been using a G1 since launch, so this is an emotional moment for me. Let’s just take a quick trip down memory lane out of respect for a solid phone.

The HTC G1 had its first peek in technical drawings back in August of 2008. Its pricing and availability was rumored a few days later, and it was spotted in the wild and leaked by T-Mobile a few days before the official launch. We philosophized, we tested, and eventually we reviewed.

Technology moves fast and leaves behind you a lot of memories and obsolete, marvelous pieces of engineering and design that you once loved and may keep loving forever.

See original post here.

How much power does my phone consume?

Posted by BA on Jul 19, 2010 in Green Computing, Mobile, Smartphones, Technology, Telecommunication | 17 comments

Did you ever think how much power does your cell phone consume? Yes, we know it will be negligible but once the number of consumers has grown to a very high number all around the world, the power being consumed as a whole may be significant?

Let’s do some simple maths and we are not getting into any fancy tools here. It’s simple arithmetic. You will need to find three numbers about your phone before you start this calculation. The numbers are:

1. The battery capacity in mAh (milli-Ampere-hour)
2. The voltage output of the battery ( volts )
3. Total Talk time
4. Total Standby Time (optional)

Skype vs Fring – Skype says Fring was being illegal

Posted by BA on Jul 17, 2010 in Communication, Internet, Mobile Apps, Smartphones, Technology, Telecommunication, Video Communication Apps, Voice Communication Apps | 3 comments

As we’ve covered already, Skype calls and instant messaging is not available for Fring users anymore. Fring calls it a cowardly act by Skype. Skype on the other hand says that they have not blocked out Fring without any reason. According to Skype, Fring was using Skype API in a way it is not supposed to be use, hence violating the API use agreement. This is what official Skype blog says about it:

Fring was using Skype software in a way it wasn’t designed to be used – and in a way which is in breach of Skype’s API Terms of Use and End User License Agreement. We’ve been talking with Fring for some time to try to resolve this amicably.

However, over time, Fring’s mis-use of our software was increasingly damaging our brand and reputation with our customers. On Friday, for example, Fring withdrew support for video calls over Skype on iOS 4 without warning, again damaging our brand and disappointing our customers, who have high expectations of the Skype experience.

Whatever is cooking between Fring and Skype, its turning out to be a nightmare for a lot of Fring users. Some believe its a move  by Skype because they are now coming up with their own Skype client on many mobile platforms, so they are trying to keep Fring’s competition at bay. Whatever is the case, all those users are suffering real bad who have been using them on mobile phones which do not support the native Skype clients and they are left without the capability of making or receiving skype calls on their phones.