PTCL is working on a project, after which, it will be able offer broadband internet of 50 Mpbs, said a statement issued by the company.

An industry first, Pakistan’s PTCL will be using VDSL2 Bonding technology to provide existing digital subscriber line (DSL) customers with speeds up to 50 Mbps.

The project leverages Alcatel-Lucent’s VDSL2 Bonding expertise and should be completed by the end of the second quarter of 2011.

VDSL2 Bonding takes two copper-based VDSL2 lines per subscriber and aggregates them – almost doubling the bandwidths available to existing customers, or expanding high-speed broadband access to areas that are underserved today. Using VDSL2 Bonding, service providers can extend the life of their existing copper infrastructure – supporting the delivery of bandwidth-intensive services such as triple-play voice, data and IPTV.

According to a recent study from market research firm IHS iSuppli, simultaneous access to applications such as peer-to-peer file sharing, online gaming, streaming audio, VoIP and IPTV will soon require bandwidths between 50 and 100Mbps. This fits exactly with VDSL2’s capabilities, especially when combined with innovations such as Bonding and Vectoring.

Commenting on this achievement President and CEO PTCL Walid Irshaid has stated

“PTCL is the first service provider worldwide to deploy a commercial VDSL2 Bonding solution that aims at doubling the bandwidths provided to its existing customers. We are thus setting the trend in international telecoms, and are taking the broadband experience in Pakistan to the next level.

Alcatel-Lucent’s VDSL2 Bonding technology and comprehensive services and network integration expertise is helping us to keep pace with the increasing bandwidth requirements of our customers, while capitalizing on the existing copper infrastructure. This will enable us to quickly deliver high-quality, high-speed and high-availability business and residential services – even in areas where it was not possible before.”

Alcatel-Lucent is providing PTCL with its Intelligent Services Access Manager (ISAM) IP access platform – which is the first platform to commercially support VDSL2 Bonding. Alcatel-Lucent will also supply Bonding-ready customer premises equipment (CPE). Alcatel-Lucent serves as the project’s master network integrator, and is providing a range of professional services – including project management, installation and commissioning, integration and technical support.

“We understand that service providers need the right tools to bridge the gap until fiber deployments have become ubiquitous. VDSL2 Bonding is an ideal approach: service providers like PTCL can almost double the speeds supported by their DSL infrastructure or expand their network’s reach. This makes it a fast and cost-effective approach to bridging the digital divide,” said Aadil Rauf CEO Alcatel-Lucent Pakistan Ltd.

“This commercial VDSL2 Bonding project with PTCL marks the beginning of VDSL2 Bonding deployments outside of the US – where the technology is typically used to expand the reach of the copper network.”

Alcatel-Lucent is the driving force behind the world’s most advanced VDSL2 roll-outs, with customers such as Belgacom, STC, Swisscom and Telekom Austria. Our VDSL2 solution has also been deployed by competitive operators, including M-net (Germany) and South Yorkshire Digital Region (UK).

For those with limited needs and budget, PTCL is now offering “National Package”, a broadband DSL with 256 Kbps speed for Rs. 299 per month. With National package, you will be allowed to download 1 GB of data in one month.

Initial impression suggests that 1 GB cap with “National Package” is not going to impress customers, however, they may get fine with 256 Kbps speed.

Additional GBs are not allowed as well, which means you may face a blackout if you consume your data limit before time.

Note: Existing customer can also avail this package but they will have to pay one time charges of Rs.1500 as downgrade charges.

We had heard of upgrade charges so far, but being in Pakistan, expect any type of charges such as these downgrade charges with “National Package”. We fear someday companies might introduce “customer charges”

Below are the all PTCL Broadband packages now available for customer

• 256Kbps          @Rs 299*
• 1Mb                 @Rs 1199
• 2Mb                 @Rs 1499
• 4Mb                 @Rs 1999
• 6Mb                 @Rs 4999
• 8Mb                 @Rs 6999
• 10Mb               @Rs 9999

*Limited download with 1 Gb

PTCL has announced PTCL EVO Big Bonus Offer, that allows all new customers to enjoy free second month if they purchase PTCL EVO device today.

Who can avail the offer?

The promotion is valid for all new EVO customers except for customers making purchase on DayPass package.

All you have to do is buy a new EVO Connection and you get full value of your first month’s usage absolutely FREE the next month.

This is a limited time promotion.

Terms & conditions:

* This offer is valid on purchase of all new commercial EVO packages except Day-pass.
* Offer is not valid for Nitro and EVO Wifi cloud customers.
* Customers are not allowed to downgrade their package till they have used free balance
* Additional usage in Go, Lite & Wiz packages will be charged from bonus balance.
* Customer must connect to the internet within first 3 days of the 2nd month to be eligible to use free balance or it will expire.
* Customer is not allowed to downgrade their package during this offer but customer can upgrade the package, in which case customer has to load the additional balance required to subscribe to the upgraded package.
* In the Advance billing package, customer will be required to pay Rs.2000 advance bill. After first bill payment, the next month will be free.
* In Landline package, customer will be billed for first month; after payment of first bill 2nd month usage will be free.

wi-tribe has launched its WiMAX broadband services in Faisalabad, its 5^th city of operations.

After launching services in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad & Rawalpindi, now the residents of Faisalabad can too enjoy broadband services from wi-tribe.

With an aim to enhance online access for both personal and business use, wi-tribe is focused towards expanding its quality-driven network, in line with a strategic plan to provide an affordable range of broadband services to more customers in all their cities of operation.

While talking about wi-tribe’s expansion in Pakistan, VP Sales & Marketing; Wahib Aslam said,

“We are really excited about introducing our services to Faisalabad and take this opportunity to invite the local community to join the tribe. We look forward to our customers benefiting from wi-tribe’s diverse package and promotion offerings, along with a superior broadband experience.

It is evident that any country’s literacy and GDP are significantly tied to online access, which will only improve the opportunities for wi-tribe’s community.”

wi-tribe’s planned expansion in Pakistan is proof of their commitment to contribute towards sustained growth in the country, with the belief that consumers are ready to embrace access to high-speed connectivity.

wi-tribe has launched its WiMAX broadband services in Faisalabad, its 5^th city of operations.

After launching services in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad & Rawalpindi, now the residents of Faisalabad can too enjoy broadband services from wi-tribe.

With an aim to enhance online access for both personal and business use, wi-tribe is focused towards expanding its quality-driven network, in line with a strategic plan to provide an affordable range of broadband services to more customers in all their cities of operation.

While talking about wi-tribe’s expansion in Pakistan, VP Sales & Marketing; Wahib Aslam said,

“We are really excited about introducing our services to Faisalabad and take this opportunity to invite the local community to join the tribe. We look forward to our customers benefiting from wi-tribe’s diverse package and promotion offerings, along with a superior broadband experience.

It is evident that any country’s literacy and GDP are significantly tied to online access, which will only improve the opportunities for wi-tribe’s community.”

wi-tribe’s planned expansion in Pakistan is proof of their commitment to contribute towards sustained growth in the country, with the belief that consumers are ready to embrace access to high-speed connectivity.

How many servers does Facebook have? For some time now, the stock answer has been “more than 10,000 servers,” a number the company began using in April 2008. Facebook has continued to use that number, even as it has soared past 300 million users and dramatically expanded its data center space.

We now have an update: Facebook has 30,000 servers supporting its operations. That number comes from Jeff Rothschild, the vice president of technology at Facebook, who discussed the company’s infrastructure in a presentation last week at UC San Diego.

“Today we have somewhere in the neighborhood of 30,000 servers,” Rothschild said during the Q&A session following his talk, adding that the number ”will be different today than it was yesterday” because Facebook is adding capacity on a daily basis.

That places Facebook among the largest Internet companies that have publicly discussed their server counts, but still well behind hosting providers Rackspace, 1&1 Internet and OVH, which each house more than 50,000 servers in their data centers. See Who Has The Most Web Servers for more date on the largest infrastructures.

20,000 Servers In 18 Months
It also suggests that Facebook has added about 20,000 servers since early 2008, which explains why it borrowed $100 million in May 2008 to fund server purchases.

Rothschild also shared some huge numbers associated with Facebook’s photo storage operation, which now stores 80 billion images (20 billion images, each in four sizes). Rothschild said the real challenge isn’t storage, but delivery. ”We serve up 600,000 photos a second,” he said.

25 Terabytes of Log Data – Daily
The amount of log data amassed in Facebook’s operations is staggering. Rothschild said Facebook manages more than 25 terabytes of data per day in logging data, which he said was the equivalent of about 1,000 times the volume of mail delivered daily by the U.S. Postal Service.

Rothschild also discussed the effectiveness of the company’s engineering operations. Facebook currently has about 230 engineers on staff, who manage data for more than 300 million users. Rothschild said that having one engineer for more than 1 million active users has been a consistent historic ratio at Facebook. ”We believe engineers at Facebook have a dramatic impact.”

The 1-hour, 10-minute presentation discusses the company’s commitment to open source technologies and the importance of memcached and Hadoop in their operations.