After piles of delays and then affirmations, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has finally received the directive from Ministry of Information Technology (MOIT) to make preparation for auction of third generation cellular licenses, said a statement issued by PTA itself.

Statement said that PTA is now planning to Auction Frequency Spectrum for Cellular Mobile Broadband Services and license will be technology neutral and the licensees be able to deploy any technology including 3G / 4G / LTE / any other upcoming technologies.

The information Memorandum (IM) for auctioning process is being prepared by PTA. The auction will be held tentatively in March 2012 for which exact schedule will be issued later.

The auction process will be overseen by a joint professional group (Auction Supervisory Committee) comprising of public sector stakeholders, including representatives of Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Information Technology, PTA and FAB etc.

PTA has constituted a special committee for making preparations to conduct the auction in the most possible transparent manner.

For the awareness and information of potential investors, PTA is also planning to hold Investors Conferences in Karachi and Islamabad. International Road Shows will also be organized. The exact schedule for this auction would be made available soon, said PTA.

It is pertinent to mention that the introduction of Cellular Mobile Broadband services in the country will initiate a new economic cycle in the country and accrue great benefits for the national economy. It will also usher in new era for proliferation of a number of new applications for data intensive value added services. This will greatly fulfill the requirement and demands of Cellular Mobile Phone subscribers and professionals who are eagerly waiting for this service.

via ProPakistani.PK

The competition in the high end smart-phone is heating up. HTC recently released its Desire HD and talks have it, that it’s an iPhone killer. I’ll take you through a step by step comparison to see if there’s any truth to it.

Design:

When it comes to looks, iPhone mostly wins hands down. And the iPhone 4 carries on that tradition. Its currently the slimmest phone in the market, claims Apple. It has a 3.5 inch 640×960 LCD screen that blows away the iPhone 3G when it comes to richness of the colors, brightness, clarity of text and pixelation. But HTC has outdone Apple with a massive 4.3 inch 480×800 LCD screen on the Desire HD. Its dimensions are much larger than the iPhone, but it’s a tradeoff of the huge screen.

Operating system:

Iphone 4: iOS4.1 (Revamped version of iPhone OS)

HTC Desire: Android 2.2

The app store is one of the best features of the iOS4. With over 250,000 apps on sale, one can find an app for anything that can be imagined. The Desire HD on the other hand runs on the open source Android.

At this point of time the Android store has 100,000+ apps. But the number of apps offered for the android is rapidly increasing and the app store will have a worthy competitor very soon.

But for now, in the apps category, the iPhone has the edge. Another thing worth mentioning is that, most of Android apps are open source (around 67%), and app installation is much easier than on the iPhone, on which it can be downright hectic.

User Interface:

The iPhone 4 has a simple and elegant user interface. It’s easy to navigate and everything is presented as simply as possible. And it manages to do that while retaining its smooth and crisp transitions for the animations. In addition now apps can be organized into folders and it also supports multi-tasking.

The Desire takes a different approach; you can have 7 different home-screens which make up a scene. And one can have 20 different scenes. Mind you, each of these home-screens can be customized with widgets, icons and apps to your hearts content.

It does a wonderful job of managing your social networks amongst other things. While Apple users may get restricted as to the amount of tweaking they can do, the range of customizations available for the Desire HD are countless.

Functional capabilities:

Both have 1Ghz processors which performance wise, are equal. Although the iPhone uses a customized A4 Chip. Apple have been known to under-clock the processor to save on battery power so the main difference between these devices is that the Desire HD offers 768MB of RAM compared to 512MB RAM in the iPhone. So it packs more punch than the iPhone.

Memory:

The iPhone is available in 16GB and 32GB. And the Desire comes with 1.5GB built-in memory and a 8GB microSD card which is upgradable to 32GB.

Multimedia:

The iPhone has a 5MP camera but the Desire HD once again outclasses it with a 8MP camera. In addition it has dual flash and a lot of options to play with the photos. Both phones are capable of shooting video at 720p.

Another plus for the Desire HD is its ability to play flash content and support for FM radio. In the sound department, the Desire HD once again takes the cake with the addition of Dolby Surround Sound which enables you to listen to crystal clear sound.

Battery:

On paper, the iPhone should last longer than the Desire but chances are that with normal to heavy use you’ll have to recharge the phone everyday. That being said, the iPhone does have a longer lasting battery. But you can always swap the current battery for a high capacity one in the Desire HD. However one can’t do that with the iPhone non-removable battery.

Using these phones in Pakistan:

Both these phones support 3G technology as well, since one of the most prominent features of the iPhone is video-calling and 3G isn’t available in Pakistan, forget about it. The iPhone can be used for video calling in Pakistan. It requires Wifi and works over 3G as well as EDGE, the latter being available here. However you’d require iPhones at both ends to use the video calling feature.

Desire HD can be used with Google maps to use as a GPS navigator, and Google has most of Pakistan’s major cities almost fully covered. There is a reception problem reported with the iPhone 4, but it’s with 3G networks so you don’t really need to consider that when buying it.

By the time 3G will be introduced in Pakistan, which will be soon I hope, since in IT we are progressing by leaps and bounds, the error will have been fixed. Because Apple claim it’s a software based error and it will be addressed in the next firmware update.

Price &Conclusion:

• The HTC Desire HD priced at around Rs. 65,000 PKR (Factory Unlocked), while HomeShopping.PK is selling it at Rs. 51,990
• iPhone 4 is available at around Rs. 62,000 PKR (Software Unlocked), while HomeShopping.PK is selling iPhone 4G it at Rs. 63,990

The prices will of course vary from dealer to dealer and depends on where you live. One of the better online places to get these phones is homeshopping.pk.

This site has been reviewed at propakistani before. And I know from personal experience that they provide competitive prices.

Lastly, I know that the Iphone holds a special place in the hearts of many people, with many opting for it because of its cool factor; there are good alternatives to it too, with the Desire HD leading the race.

CPLC has recently published the report on the cell phones snatched/theft incidents. According to their data which they collected from February 2009 to January 2010, a total of 36377 cell phones were reported snatched or theft. Those snatch/stolen incidents which were never reported are other than this figure.

CPLC has compiled their data according to areas, brands and colors such as…

• Samsung has been most stolen mobile after Nokia. Nokia made almost 75% of total snatched/stolen phones
• Snatchers like Black color mobile phones more. Or let’s put it this way, there are more black phones in the country than any other color. A total of 77.4% snatched cellphones were of Black in color.
• 44.4% of the incidents occurred in Karachi alone
• Karachi Saddar came second in the list after Gulsh-e-Iqbal
• 12529 mobiles are reportedly snatched
• 23848 cellphones are reported in theft columns.
• 45568 reports of cellphones snatched/thefts were from Punjab.
• If you are carrying white body Trend Mobile cellphone then better do a bit of tap dance because the snatchers don’t like this as a whole. Only 1.8% of the total reported incidents were of white body color in nature. Whereas only 45 mobiles of Trend Mobiles made were reported snatched/theft.
• Karachi West is having least reported incidents. Only 4.9% of the total!

It must be noted that there is no info regarding the recovery of cellphones, meaning that, there were either no recoveries made at all, or they are very little in numbers.

As an estimate, unreported incidents of cellphones may go as high as 11 fold of reported numbers.

On PTA’s part, these numbers suggest that regulator has failed to aware consumers and blocking handsets through IMEI system, that is in place for years now. It looks that there is a huge market for stolen handsets, which are being purchased and then re-purchased with no hurdle at all.

It merits mentioning here that IMEI based blockage system had failed when shopkeepers started re-setting IMEI numbers of blocked cell phones (through easily available software).