PTCL has silently made a change in their broadband policy.

According to old policy, customers had to pay rent of PTCL broadband modem every month with DSL charges and when customer wanted to discontinue PTCL DSL service he had to return PTCL modem to PTCL – if he is not 12 months old customer.

Meaning that after 12 installments, modem belonged to customer – and PTCL couldn’t demand for modem if DSL services were discontinued after 12 months.

But now with new PTCL broadband policy, all new and old customers must have to return back DSL modems at the time when they want to discontinue their DSL service, even if they have completed 12 months or more.

So now modem charges are considered as monthly rental for modem and not the monthly installment.

This policy is valid for old customers too – meaning that if a customer has paid modem installments, even then he will have to return the modem in case of disconnection.

On other side, on new connections – you will have to get PTCL’s modem even if you have your own modem/router with you, unlike LinkDotNet, which allows you to use your own modem/router.

For example with Linkdotnet 1MB student package comes at Rs.885, which includes Rs.150 for modem rental. If you have your own ADSL modem, then you can get the same connection at Rs.735.

via=’http://propakistani.pk’

The SEA-ME-WE 4 cable linking Europe with the Middle East and South Asia was cut on Wednesday, 14th April in the Mediterranean Sea.

It became inoperable due to a “shunt fault” approximately 1,886 kilometers from Alexandria towards Palermo, Italy in the S4 section of the cable.

A shunt fault occurs when the submarine cable insulation becomes damaged and a short circuit occurs when it comes into contact with water. While repairs are underway it is likely that the outage will take a further 4 days at a minimum and might take up to 10 days depending on weather and sea conditions.

Until today, SEA-ME-WE-4 was operating with limited capacity, however, today starting 12 PM Pakistan Time, all west bound traffic from Egypt onwards has been shut down.

Meaning that all traffic to Europe and US (from Pakistan) may face higher latency – but not the blackout due to redundant/alternate pipes available for usage. Though they cost extra to service providers because of shift of all traffic load to secondary pipes.

In a telephonic communication a Transworld official told ProPakistani that Transworld has bought additional capacity, worth millions of dollars, for eastbound routes, initially landing at Singapore via Japan to United States and then to Europe.

This will increase the route distance hence the latency, but traffic will not be impacted at large, said the official.

Transworld and PTCL are only operators selling international voice and data traffic in Pakistan.

Transworld, that is a sister concern of Mobilink and a project of Orascom has 40 percent market share in Pakistan for International traffic, with major operators such as Wateen, Worldcall, wi-tribe, Neyatel etc on its network.

It seems like PTCL is going to double the DSL speeds of broadband customers very soon, most likely with in month or two, at most – same like it did last year. According to news the existing packages will be doubled as

• 1 mbps to 2 mbps
• 2 mbps to 4 mbps
• 4 mbps to 8 mbps

According to PTCL representative and feedback of different users PTCL is testing these double speeds on randomly selected subscribers from different areas of country. These users will be downgraded after the testing period ends to their original speeds and will be upgraded after official announcement, which is most likely to be on 23rd March, but can be delayed as no final date has been announced yet.

The up gradation process may take several months according to the size of network. Though PTCL is using is ADSL2+ which supports up to 24mbps but at same time there are many subscribers on Copper media, which supports up to 4 mbps at most (that too with distortion).

We hope that student package users will also get this upgrade and can enjoy higher speeds at discounted rates as recently PTCL discontinued all student packages above 1mbps.

We will keep you informed on this, you can also share your experience in comments if you got this test up gradation.

No official words on the situation yet.

via ProPakistani

Earlier today I came across this news playing on GEO television network where they showed an email sent from PM cell. The address was mentioned as pmmediaoffice [at] gmail.com.

Went into shock and awe. The government official channel is using GMAIL account. What is going on here? Thought it was some kinda mistake so I just googled the email address and I found the exact email address. Exact Match!!.

Check it out for yourself here http://asiapacific.ifj.org/en/articles/appeal-to-government-to-protect-targeted-journalists-in-pakistan

•When we have all the official IT infrastructure to help the cause then why do they use the GMail account?
•When we have Electronic Government Directorate to enhance the efficiency of the government, then why do we have GMail account for official purpose?
•When we have official email addresses backed by Government own IT infrastructure, then why do we keep our mails on public servers?
•When there is petty amount of tax payers money going to the pockets of providers of securing government communication, then why do we rely on freely available email address?
Do we not know the repercussions of having freely available email address? Out of my narrow sightedness. What do you think?

by ProPakistani.